ACT 35: Roger the Dark Knight
by Galaxy1001D
Summary: It's Beck versus Roger for the fate of Angel, Paradigm City and the Repository of Lost Memories! THE BIG O: SEASON THREE
1. Angel on My Shoulder

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!_

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!_

_Cast in the name of God!_

**Negotiator**

_Ye not the guilty!_

**Android**

_We have come to terms!_

**Butler**

_Big-O!_

**Officer**

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! Big-O!_

_Big-O!_

_Big-O! Big-O! -O! -O! Big-O!_

_Chapter One: Angel on My Shoulder_

_This is Paradigm City, the city of amnesia. Nobody really knows what happened but forty years ago, all its citizens forgot where they put their car keys… and their lives. Every single person lost all memory of what had happened before. No one even knew who they really are. But people are adaptable. If they can figure out how to use tools and harness electricity, they can still make some kind of civilization. The question is… what kind of civilization will they make?_

_Paradigm City is a world of decadence and corruption. It's a place where tragedies are as common as belly buttons and injustice is business as usual. Nine times out of ten, the high and mighty get away with murder while poor are lucky if they can even get a fair trial. But every once in a while, even a man protected by wealth and power gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar._

The man standing before the desk in Oliver Rice's study appeared to be in his mid-twenties. His broad shoulders and trim waist indicated both strength and agility. His jet-black hair, strong jaw and high cheekbones on his boyish face made him the definition of 'tall, dark, and handsome'. He was clad in a black suit consisting of a long black overcoat concealing a black double-breasted jacket, matching trousers, shoes and gloves. His shirt was crisp and white and his black tie was bisected by a gray stripe.

_My name is Roger Smith. I'm a professional negotiator. I've also got a private investigator's license and I've been known to use it. In a city where logic and sanity are as scarce as a teetotaler at the local bar, I'm in big demand. I've got plenty of job security in a city where reason is as scarce as total recall. _

"Mr. Rice, I didn't come to your home just so I could see how big your mansion is. I came here tonight to ask you to answer to these charges of corruption." Although Roger's tone was professional, there was a no-nonsense edge to it that indicated that he wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

"How dare you come into my home and accuse me of these things!" the older man snarled. From the look of him, Oliver Rice was born before the day that took away everybody's memories, ten years before that day at least. His burly form filled his expensive dark blue pinstripe suit and his greying handlebar mustache took attention away from his receding hairline. "I should have my men throw you out! What is your game, Roger Smith? Do you intend to blackmail me?"

"Nothing of the sort," Roger Smith shook his head. "I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself before I go to the Military Police."

Rice rose from his desk to glower at the negotiator. "Just what gives you the right to interfere in my business, Mister Smith? I'm on the Paradigm board of directors! It wouldn't pay to cross me. If I was you I'd keep my mouth shut and look the other way."

"There's nothing I'd rather do," Roger said, "but the last time I did that Paradigm's chairman attacked the city with a giant robot known as a megadeus. Alex Rosewater tried to take over a city he already controlled and create a 'New Order' where citizens don't even get the illusion of freedom. He nearly started a war with a group of foreigners calling themselves 'the Union' after getting their agents to eliminate his father's supporters so he could replace them with his own. Between the Union's attack and his megadeus' bombardment, the damage is visible all over the city! And that's not including the toll on human life! And _you_ were supporting him the entire time, Mister Oliver Rice."

"Just about every top executive in the Paradigm Corporation was supporting him, Mister Smith!" Rice growled. "Why are picking on _me_?"

"Because unlike the others, you're still trying to move Paradigm City towards a dictatorship," Roger announced as he leaned forward to put his face within inches of Oliver Rice's. "You've been gathering followers, and transferring funds off the books. I've recently discovered that you've built a megadeus designed by a known criminal, Jason Beck, the same crook Alex Rosewater used to get the megadeus he called 'Big Fau' working. You've been a naughty boy Rice, and this time I'm not going to sit on my hands until half the city is destroyed. So tell me: Is there any justifiable reason that you're doing all this or do I have to call my good friend Colonel Dastun and have him take you downtown? I've got enough evidence to even put a Paradigm board member away for a long, long time."

"It's been _you_!" Rice's eyes widened in realization. "_You're _the one who's been setting Colonel Dastun on us! For months now, we've been getting investigated and arrested, one by one! _You're_ the one who's responsible for the high turnover rate on the board!"

"If you mean I'm the one who's been investigating and exposing the Paradigm executives who are still dangerous, then yes," Roger nodded grimly as he stood up straight and crossed his arms. "The Paradigm Company signs the Military Police's paychecks. Dastun has to play nice with you guys and treat you with kid gloves. He can only investigate and make an arrest when both the danger and the evidence are overwhelming, which is precisely the case here. But I'm a free agent and can act on my own. Don't expect your fellow board members to help you, Rice. When they find out that you were planning to double cross them, they'll throw you to the wolves just like you deserve. You might think you're untouchable, but you're not. You've done whatever you want to long enough."

"And _you've_ _talked_ long enough!" Rice pulled a revolver out of his desk and pointed it at Roger. "You think you're some kind of white knight who rides in to save the day; well you're not! You're a dark knight who causes as much misery and destruction as the rest of us! Yes, I've done all the things you say I've done but _you'll_ never live to see me pay for it!"

If Rice expected Roger to show fear, he was going to be disappointed. Roger's face only displayed contempt. "Mister Rice, do you really think that I'd say all this to you without taking a few precautions? Go ahead and shoot. I removed the firing pin on that pistol hours ago while you were at work. Your gun is harmless."

Rice instinctively examined the gun in his hand and yelped when Roger delivered a karate chop to his wrist. The revolver bounced off the floor and a gunshot was heard as a hole appeared in the wall.

Roger allowed himself a smile. "Glad you didn't call my bluff."

The door to Rice's study burst open and a senior officer with mutton chops and a black horseshoe mustache burst into the room with an automatic pistol in his hand. He was wearing a greenish brown Military Police uniform as did the two young men who followed him.

"Roger!" the officer barked in his throaty growl. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, Dastun," Roger smiled. "Did you get his confession?"

"We got it all," Dastun nodded as he holstered his gun. "Mister Rice, I'm placing you under arrest."

"You tricked me!" Rice bawled. "I should have killed you!"

"That's all you need, having the Military Police witnessing you murdering someone," Roger snorted. "You really don't know when to quit while you're ahead do you?"

"No I don't!" Rice snarled as he turned to the bookcase behind him.

"He's going for another gun!" Dastun drew his pistol again.

When Rice slid a book forward the bookcase and a circular section of the floor rotated to reveal a secret door. In less than two seconds, Rice was on the other side of the wall concealed from view while all Roger and the military police officers could see was another bookcase that was nearly identical to the first.

"You've got to be kidding," Dastun groaned as he ran forward and started pulling books off the shelves. "One of these things must open it," he added as he tried some books on the left side of the bookcase, hoping to find the book that had activated the revolving secret door before. "Roger do you know how these things work? Huh? Roger?" He looked behind him and saw only his officers. Roger Smith was gone.

At that moment Roger Smith was running through the mansion to the front door. "Norman, is it ready?" he asked his wristwatch.

"Indeed it is sir," a cultured British accented voice informed him. "Big O is ready and waiting should you need it."

"Copy that," Roger said as he went out the front door and out onto the massive porch. He staggered forwards as the back of Oliver Rice's mansion burst open and a hulking five story tall robot emerged. Roger snorted in contempt at a spectacle that would have most people running for cover. "Now, Big O," he hissed into his watch. "It's Showtime. Action."

The lumbering robot that had burst out from Oliver Rice's mansion vaguely resembled a hunchbacked soldier wearing football pads and a gas mask. "Roger Smith!" Rice's voice bellowed from a loudspeaker. "You've cost me everything! My life is in ruins! Now I'm going to take yours!"

"Not gonna happen," Roger muttered just before the earth opened beneath him and he rose into the air carried by a massive metal hand. The black megadeus that Roger called 'the Big O' was revealed to be an ungainly metal giant towering over fifty feet tall. The head of Big O was an impassive face that was dwarfed by the megadeus' barrel shaped body. Two vaguely humanoid legs supported its bulk. The enormous arms of the megadeus were in reality massive piledrivers with huge mechanical hands instead of chisels. The crimson collar rose to obscure the robot's face and reveal a merlot colored circular control room centering on a circular cockpit. As Roger sat in the central chair three circular screens rose out of the floor on metal cylinders. Two curving metal arms lowered as joysticks traveled along their length to stop at the ends. The central screens displayed a message: CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD YE NOT GUILTY.

_It's my job to get people to talk things out before they use force. But there are some people who prefer force to diplomacy. Force is simpler. So when words aren't enough, I've got… the Big O!_

"What the devil?" Rice gasped.

"I see Beck didn't tell you about me," Roger grunted as he worked the pedals at his feet and the joysticks at his hands. "I hope that robot you're driving came with a warranty." The Big O chugged forwards in a run that was surprisingly quick for a robot that size and closed the distance almost immediately.

"What? No!" Rice gasped from the cockpit in his robot. "How do you work this thing?" he cried as he struggled with the controls. "Agh!"

In less time than it takes to tell, Roger and Big O cracked Rice's robot open like an egg. Roger worked the controls to have Big O pull the gas mask style face off the robot's chest cavity to reveal that it concealed the cockpit where Rice was hiding.

By the time Dastun and his men got outside Rice's robot was scrap metal and Big O was disappearing down the massive hole in front of the mansion that it had appeared in. When Dastun took off his hat as he gaped at the spectacle he exposed a network of scars on right side of his bald dome. Then he relaxed and put his hat back on. "All right, where's Rice?" he growled.

"I see him sir!" one of his men pointed at the old man lying in a heap of metal rubble. "I see him moving! He's still alive!"

"Book him, Dino," Dastun grunted.

* * *

The sun was setting turning the ocean crimson and casting reddish hues on the hulks of ruined buildings and hulled ships. No matter how dirty and polluted Paradigm City's beach was, there was something cleansing about it. Even if the beach was pristine, the water from the ocean would be undrinkable, but Roger always got the feeling of the purity, of renewal, as if the dirt from the city was being washed away. Not even the hulks of wrecked ships or the ruins of wrecked buildings sticking out of the sea could change that.

Roger's long black Cadillac was parked on the beach. He was leaning against it while gazing at an enchanting blonde woman in pink. If she was a road, her curves would make a driver seasick. Her lovely face could be described as angelic. It was no surprise that no matter how many names she went by Roger always referred to her as 'Angel'.

"So how did it go?" the blonde asked as she pulled her pink coat tighter around her body as a breeze blew up.

"Just as we planned," Roger chuckled as he gazed wistfully in her direction. "We've got so much on Rice that even if his lawyers manage to clear him of a few charges, Dastun has plenty of others to stick on him. He's going away for a long, long time. How did you get the information and footage anyway? Did Rice hurt anybody you know or something?"

"No more than any of the others did," Angel shrugged as the water lapped up around her shoes. "Honestly, if you knew half of the things about the Paradigm board that I do you'd give up your 'no guns' policy Mister Negotiator."

"Tell me about it," Roger grunted. "If half of what I know about him is true, the only reason to take him alive is so Dastun can continue his crusade to clean up this city and restore the public's faith that the system works. That and to avoid a downward spiral where I become judge, jury, and executioner of course. There are enough ruthless men out there without Big O's pilot becoming one of them."

Angel frowned in concern before relaxing into a wistful smile. "Don't ever change Roger. Sometimes your naïve optimism is all that keeps me going."

Roger chuckled bitterly. "Funny, that's the same thing I say to Dorothy. Hey Angel, tell me something. It's been a month since you and Dorothy rescued me and since then you've been keeping an eye on me. The information you provide is incredible. Where does it all come from, I wonder?"

Now it was Angel's turn to laugh bitterly. "Why don't you ask a woman her age while you're at it?"

"You're right," Roger raised his gloved hands in a placating gesture. "It's those little mysteries that keep a fella interested. But seriously Angel, wherever you're getting your information from, I wouldn't let anybody know that you've got it, otherwise there'll be another target on your back. I don't know how you get your info but it would be as dangerous as Big O if it was abused."

"Tell me something I don't know," Angel sighed.

In the meantime, in a yellow van parked in the distance, a sinister man was listening to the conversation over a bulky radio that was installed in the back. "What did I tell you guys?" the man in the yellow double breasted suit cackled to his cohorts. "Putting a bug in the hood ornament in Roger's car has got to be the smartest thing I ever did!"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Unwanted Invitations_


	2. Unwanted Invitations

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Two: Unwanted Invitations _

_This city, Paradigm City, has no history before forty years ago. For some of the people who live here, even the past four decades have some blank spots. Still the denizens of Paradigm try to make themselves a community and try to forms bonds and relationships, even if they have no clear idea who they really are or who they're really dealing with. It's the Paradigm way to pretend that this is normal and has always been this way, even if one can never know for sure._

In the heart of the city, outside of the damaged yet titanic geodesic domes that once protected the neighborhoods and estates of the rich stood a spacious tower that was formerly a bank before the disaster that left Paradigm City without memories. It was built over the nexus of the underground transportation system that the metropolis had enjoyed until four decades ago. The suites at the top floor were decorated like a Victorian mansion; the roof was a patio that had a tasteful sculpture and a garden.

In that building was an office where Roger sat at a large desk decorated with numerous hourglasses. He was crouching over a scale intent on weighing a portion of fine white sand. He had discarded his tie and jacket, and now wore black suspenders with matching trousers, with a crisp white shirt open at the collar.

"Here is your mail Roger," a slender, teenage girl quietly announced as she entered the room. She was clad in a reddish black dress that had a white ruffled collar and formal white cuffs. A set of black stockings and shiny black shoes completed her ensemble. Her red pageboy haircut was immaculate, her bangs broken by a black barrette. In her small delicate hand were a collection of envelopes.

"Leave it on the corner of my desk Dorothy, I'll get to them when I get around to it," Roger said absently as he continued to concentrate on the scale before him.

"You have a legal letter," Dorothy selected an envelope from the stack and placed the rest on his desk. "From a Mister Jimmy Shore, from the law firm of Crane, Shore and Brown."

"That's not a legal letter that's a personal one," Roger snorted. "It's just Jimmy Shore inviting me to his stupid costume party again."

"Costume party?"

"Yes costume party," he repeated. "Every year he invites me to a costume party he holds for his clients. It's just an excuse for the rich and powerful to indulge themselves." He leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Although I bet there's a lot less rich and powerful around lately…"

"Costume party?" Dorothy repeated in the same calm tone she used before.

"I'm sorry Dorothy," Roger apologized as he finally looked up from his desk. "I keep forgetting that you're an android. Quite simply, a costume party is a party where all the guests wear a mask or a silly costume. You know; a masked ball."

Dorothy had a blank look on her face, but as an android she often had a blank look on her face. "A ball," she repeated. "Like a debutante ball?"

"When it came to making a real live girl, Doctor Wayneright covered all the bases," Roger chuckled. "I suppose so. It's really just an excuse for Jimmy to keep his clients close and peep at the women in their revealing outfits."

"Revealing outfits?"

"Well, yeah," Roger coughed into his fist. "Lots of women seize the opportunity as a chance to wear something they could never get away with otherwise. Let's face it; most ladies love to dress up in fancy outfits that will get them attention. And guys like Jimmy are more than willing to give them that attention. Forget it Dorothy. A costume party really isn't your scene."

"Why not?"

Roger blushed. "Well uh, you're a nice girl," he said lamely, "and you have too much self-respect to make a spectacle of yourself like that. And besides, going to a party would be a big step for you. I don't think something as daring as a costume ball is such a good idea at this stage. You wouldn't like it."

"Roger, if I don't like it I just won't go to another one," the girl said.

"What?" Roger frowned. "You're actually thinking of going?"

"Why not?" the girl asked. "_You_ go every year."

"I didn't go last year," he insisted.

"But you went the year before," Dorothy guessed.

"No I didn't," Roger snorted. "I've got better things to do than to wear a ridiculous getup and cozy up to Jimmy's partners and clients."

"They could be your clients too," the girl offered. "That's probably why he invited you. He probably knows people who could use a negotiator and he's trying to send some business your way."

Roger was surprised at her remark because he knew that most people hired negotiators to avoid the necessity of hiring lawyers. He coughed and swallowed to stop himself from laughing cruelly at her naïveté. He had promised himself that he would be nicer to her after all. As a matter of fact, her stubbornness indicated a confidence and independence that he was trying to nurture.

"Well, uh, that's nice of him but I'm still not interested," Roger smiled strangely.

"Is it because they don't sell costumes that are black Roger Smith?" Dorothy asked.

"Uh, yeah that's it," he lied as he ignored the fact that she had called him 'Roger Smith'. Usually she only called him by his first and last name when she was upset at him or drawing a line in the sand.

"That's a pity," Dorothy's neck servos hummed as she turned her head to look down the hall. "I've never been to a costume party before."

"Um yeah that's a pity," Roger said quickly as he picked up an envelope and opened a drawer on his desk to retrieve a letter opener. For some reason he found his mail very interesting right now. "Sure is a pity, but in this house we've got an 'only black' rule. Heck, I'll bet we can't even find a place that _sells_ costumes with the city being such a wreck as it is."

"It will be a challenge alright," Dorothy agreed as she turned her head to look at Roger again. "I'll leave you to read your mail, Roger."

As she left, Roger let out a sigh of relief. The last thing he wanted was to go someplace where he'd be stuck wearing a silly costume.

Dorothy headed to the kitchen where an elderly man was peeling potatoes. Although his thinning white hair didn't cover his balding pate, he did sport a magnificent handlebar moustache. Without pausing the android girl put on an apron and started peeling potatoes at super speed. "Norman, do you know of any place that sells costumes?"

The old man's left eyesocket was covered by a black eyepatch but his right eye winked in surprise. "Why Miss Dorothy," he said in his surprisingly gentle voice. "Does this mean that Master Roger is actually _accepting_ the invitation to attend Jimmy Shore's costume party this year?"

"Yes, as long as he can find a costume that's black," the girl said as she peeled the potatoes. She resembled a film being played too fast as the pile of unpeeled potatoes shrank and the pile of peeled potatoes grew.

"Why that's wonderful," the old man smiled. "It would be good for Master Roger to get out of the house and have some fun for once. Tell me, will _you_ also be attending this year?"

"As long as we can find a costume that's my size," Dorothy replied as she finished the potatoes. "For me, black is strictly optional."

"There must be someplace in Paradigm City we can find the two of you costumes," Norman mused as he removed his apron and washed his hands. "Finish up here Miss Dorothy while I go get your measurements and a telephone directory."

_In a city without Memory, madness lurks around every corner. The denizens of this town have learned the hard way that the only way to stay sane is to take time out and appreciate what little they have. We interact with our fellow beings, even if we don't know who they are or who we ourselves are supposed to be. But when everyone's a stranger, can trust really exist?_

Roger took a deep breath and watched the sand flow through the hourglasses on his desk. He had constructed another one and added it to the collection that was decimated when Beck's scorpion robots had invaded the place all those months ago. Why didn't he want to go the party? Okay, he admitted that it was stupid, but a festive kind of stupidity was exactly what he needed just now. It would be good for him to reconnect with a friend, meet some girls and have a good time. So what was stopping him?

Could it be that his recent experiences had left him too shook up to let his guard down? Was he really that cowed? Both he and Dorothy had been kidnapped last month and now Roger was making excuses not to leave home. These days he only accepted investigations when he would be working closely with Dastun and the Military Police. Even when handling the most mundane negotiation jobs he wore a bulletproof vest and brought such an assortment of concealed weapons and gadgets with him that it seemed like he really _was_ taking a lunchbox full of missiles with him when he went to work. What happened to him? Had he been kidnapped one time too many?

Was this what happened to Dorothy? As an android could she choose whether or not to express her emotions and had her multiple abductions left her unable to trust anyone enough to show how she really felt? If so why did she want to go to a costume party? Was she really unflappable or was she looking for an excuse to go out wearing a physical mask instead of a symbolic one so she could face her fear?

Oh well, he thought. With the city in such a mess it doesn't matter. If there's no place Dorothy can buy costumes that means there isn't enough civilization out there to bother leaving the house for. Maybe next year the city will have recovered enough that it would be silly to stay home but for now Roger was off the hook.

"Master Roger?" Norman entered the office wearing an archaic tuxedo and carrying a black telephone. "You have a telephone call sir."

"Really?" Roger asked as he took the phone from Norman. "Who from?"

"Believe it or not from the Paradigm Corporation Master Roger," Norman said as he handed Roger the telephone. "From the office of Lester Young."

"The Paradigm Corporation?" Roger scowled in surprise. "What do they want?"

* * *

_There's a reason why this city, Paradigm City, has its name. It's because just about everything in it from the grocery store to the city's government is owned by the Paradigm Company. Paradigm City is a place where a single corporation is both God and State. It's a city where the wealthy rule and everybody else just gets by the best they can. I don't care for the Paradigm Group, and the feeling is mutual. So why is their new chairman summoning me to his home?_

Lester Young owned a mansion in the east central dome, a dome that was surprisingly undamaged. Big Fau hadn't made that dome a priority target which meant the most of the estates in that particular dome were probably owned by the supporters of the late Alex Rosewater. That was a strike against Young but Roger wasn't expecting better. As he was led through a large parlor complete with a grand piano he put his 'negotiator face' on and his best to act professional. "Mister Young I presume?" he said as he entered the office. The office was filled with chairs and divans facing a large mahogany desk.

"Welcome Mister Smith," said the stout man behind the desk. Roger gaged his age to be in his fifties, but of course if someone was born over four decades ago all one could do was guess. "So glad that you could make it. I've been trying to get ahold of you for some time."

"This is indeed an honor Mister Young," Roger smiled grimly as he tugged on the sleeves of his black double-breasted jacket before stepping forward to shake the executive's hand. "Congratulations on getting the chairman's seat. It couldn't have been easy."

"No it wasn't." Lester Young said as he and Roger studied each other. Roger's first impression of Lester Young was that he appeared somewhat brutish and overweight. The impression of flabbiness was almost dispelled by the executive's firm handshake and the ease of his movements. Even though Mister Young ate gourmet dining every night it didn't mean that he was clumsy or lazy.

Whoever could take over the Paradigm Corporation in effect ruled the known world, so only most intelligent, must ruthless man in the city could conceivably accomplish such a feat. As Roger looked into Young's piggy eyes he saw a man who wouldn't faint at the sight of blood. He silently hoped that this chairman would do a better job of running the city than the last one, but he wasn't holding his breath.

"Have a seat, Mister Smith," the chairman nodded to a chair.

"Thank you but I'd rather stand." Although Roger smiled pleasantly, he refused to let his opponent get him off his feet during a combat situation, even a metaphorical one. Not only that, but the chairs in front of Lester Young's massive desk sat low to the floor, giving the chairman a considerable height advantage when it came to psychologically dominance. Roger wasn't about the play that game. He didn't work for the Paradigm Corporation, he worked for himself, and he wasn't about to let anybody forget it, not even the head of the Paradigm Corporation.

"Suit yourself," Young shrugged as he walked over to his private bar. "Care for a drink Mister Smith?"

"No thank you," Roger smiled diplomatically. "I've still got to drive home."

Young gave a grunt of acknowledgement as poured himself a gin and tonic, then walked back to the desk and set it on a coaster. When he didn't sit Roger realized that the executive wasn't really interested in having anything to drink, he had only gone over to the bar to make an excuse not to sit himself. The game had begun. Although Young wasn't as tall as Roger it was easy to forget that because of his girth. He was so big that he looked tall. "Speaking of home, you're probably wondering why I called you to my personal abode instead of to my office."

"Yes, but it wasn't my place to ask," Roger smiled diplomatically.

"What I have to share with you is for your ears only," Young hissed in a conspiratorial whisper. "No one else but you must know this. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly Mister Young," Roger purred. "I'm a professional. I assure you that I will be the model of discretion whether I take the job or not. Now what is it you wanted to see me about?"

Lester Young's piggy eyes blinked. Since Roger had come, obviously Young never considered the possibility of the negotiator refusing the job. "Well, yes. But it would be a pity. Although I have assigned other agents to the task it is extremely unlikely that anyone but you could complete the job. I need you to negotiate with someone."

"Who?"

"I'm getting to that," Young muttered before snapping at him. "Confound it! Can't we conduct business like reasonable men and sit down? I prefer eyes at a level!"

"Sorry about that but I don't care for your office," Roger purred. "The chairs are too low for my long legs. Tell you what? Why don't we talk in your parlor out there? I'd feel more like a guest than an employee," he winked.

Soon Roger was sitting on a divan in the spacious parlor sipping a gin and tonic. "Now what is this all about Mister Young? What's so important that you couldn't tell me at Paradigm Headquarters?"

Young was in a chair that was tailor made for his seventh of a ton bulk. "I believe that there's someone in this city who knows what happened forty years ago," the portly chairman whispered dramatically.

"I've heard that before," Roger smiled lazily. "Let me guess, a sidewalk psychic?"

"No, a former agent of an organization called the Union," Young corrected. "A woman of your acquaintance who goes by many names but for our purposes we will refer to as 'Angel.'"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Unknown Intentions_


	3. Unknown Intentions

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Three: Unknown Intentions_

"Angel?" Roger frowned. "What do you want to see _her_ for?"

"Do you remember the day the white megadeus laid waste to the city Mister Smith?" Young asked.

"Every night I try real hard to forget it," the negotiator snorted. He was surprised. So far none of the Paradigm Company's Inner Circle had ever mentioned the former chairman's actions so directly. Perhaps Lester Young hadn't been part of the 'New Order' after all.

"The entire city seemed to go mad, and I'm not just referring to the physical assault on our civilization," the portly executive clasped his stubby fingers together. "There are reports from all over the city of mass hallucinations and private visions that defy imagination. Some saw the city as completely devastated, others as barely damaged. Some saw giant stage lights fall from the sky and others claimed that the sky, no, the entire city was replaced by a giant glowing grid. Others claimed that a ghostly megadeus with giant wings destroyed the city until the black megadeus and its pilot offered to sacrifice himself to appease its rancor. Although most citizens of our fair city have forgotten these hallucinations I have not. I can see from the look on your face that you haven't either."

Roger's worried expression changed to one of irritation. Before the Ellen Waite case, he would never have been so obvious. His professional negotiator face was slipping. Not a good idea in front of the new Paradigm chairman, a man who for all intents and purposes could end up as the new head honcho of the human race. "So what does this have to do with me?"

"Ah well it has to do with my vision," Young's piggy eyes grew cunning as they focused on the negotiator. "As the city disappeared the chest of the black megadeus opened and a young man emerged who took upon himself to negotiate with the ghostly megadeus."

"He did eh?" Roger frowned.

"Yes," Lester Young nodded slowly. "He did. He called the ghostly megadeus an angel and from his words I could infer that the ghost megadeus' pilot was a woman. That's when it hit me. It was the pilot, not megadeus who was called 'Angel'. 'Angel' was a proper name."

"So what does this have to do with me?" Roger repeated.

"Mister Smith, barring a repeat of what happened forty years ago I will never forget the face of the young man who negotiated with that Angel," Young announced. "I know who the pilot of the black megadeus is. I admit that information is corroborated by certain confidential files that are for the chairman's eyes only."

"I… see," Roger said as he set his drink down on a coffee table before him.

"Yes," Young frowned. "So you see where this puts us. The pilot of the black megadeus has access to a power that could either protect this city or destroy it. I have to know where the intentions of such a person lie."

Roger glanced around the room and surveyed the burly men who were obviously Young's bodyguards trying to be unobtrusive as possible. Counting the one sitting at the piano there were five of them. Five people who if Lester Young didn't tell who Big O's pilot was could probably figure it out. Still, it was better for them to _think_ he was Big O's pilot than to _know_ he was. "The black megadeus has always protected the city in the past. What makes you think that would change?"

"I pray it will not Mister Smith," Young sparred, "but I must admit that it worries me. Here we have the most powerful weapon that mankind possesses in the hands of a private individual, an individual who could destroy the city if he wanted to. You can understand my concern."

"If the man behind the machine is such a bad guy, why hasn't he done something yet?" Roger shrugged. "As far as I know the megadeus has always protected the lives of everyone in this city, whether they live inside or outside the domes. That protection has even extended to the Paradigm Company. Heck, the only time the megadeus hit Paradigm Headquarters was when it was fighting the white one when it was piloted by Paradigm's chairman, a megalomaniac who was attacking his own city. Since then the megadeus has been relatively well-behaved."

"Oh yes," Young nodded sarcastically. "Why do you suppose that is?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Mister Smith, in the month after the attack on our city by the white megadeus the populace rose up in revolt over my company's role in that fiasco. It was an ideal time for the pilot of the black one to use both his power and his popularity to take over the city. At the time the populace had elevated the black megadeus to near divine status. The time was ripe, yet the master of the megadeus did not act. Why do you suppose that is?"

"Maybe he didn't want the job," Roger suggested.

"Come now, Mister Smith," Young scoffed. "Such a temptation would lead even the most saintly of us astray. Why didn't he take over the city?"

"Maybe he didn't need to," Roger shrugged defensively.

"During such a time of unrest everyone is vulnerable," Young insisted. "Anyone with such power could not resist solidifying his position by seizing more. It is deplorable, but it is human nature and while the megadeus may be a logical unfeeling machine its pilot is as fallible as you or I. Why wasn't power seized when the prize presented itself? Rulership was right in his grasp!"

"Mister Young, you have control of the Paradigm Corporation and through that, the entire city," Roger sighed with a hint of resignation. "Would you describe yourself as a happy man?"

"No sir, I would not." The reply was made without hesitation.

"Maybe the pilot of the black megadeus is grownup enough to realize that power won't make him happy," Roger shrugged. "He's got the most powerful weapon known to man; does he really _need_ more?"

"Hopefully not," Young attempted to smile and nodded in surrender. It was an effort but at least he was making it. Maybe that counted for something. Young cleared his throat and started again. "Well, now that that is out of the way we can move on the topic of the Angel," he said uncomfortably. "What do you suppose happened that day when the spectral megadeus appeared?"

"I still haven't figured it out," Roger shook his head. "I keep turning it over and over in my head and I still can't come to grips with it. I can't even figure out why the pilot of the black megadeus said the things he did."

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" Young asked imperiously.

"You said that people reported all sorts of strange things that day and then forgot what they saw," Roger shrugged. "I can remember what happened, just not why or what it means. If you have a theory I'd love to hear it." When Young scrutinized him Roger continued. "Honest! I don't know. All this time I didn't know that anyone else saw the same thing I did. I just assumed that I imagined the whole thing. You don't believe that the entire city _really_ vanished do you?"

"Like you, I don't know what to believe," Young admitted, "but I have formed some theories. I believe that an event like this happened four decades ago and that what we witnessed were the first stages of a mental attack that would have stripped the world of its Memories once again. And that somehow the pilot of the black megadeus managed to talk the one called Angel out of erasing the past. That man has the ear of someone who has the power of life and death over us, all of us. If she really exists she could erase civilization at her whim. It is paramount that we find her and determine her motives."

"Doesn't sound much like a negotiation," Roger muttered. "It sounds more like a witch-hunt."

"The negotiation will present itself when my agent determines whether or not it's possible to convince her to turn over her information _voluntarily_," Young explained. "I admit such a possibility is unlikely, but for her to willingly surrender that knowledge would be ideal. I cannot abide the thought that our very existence is in the hands of an unknown. As it stands, there's no way ensure the security of our civilization. Will you be willing to find this individual and thus secure the safety of the human race?"

Roger seemed to be getting a terrible headache. He winced and pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked down at drink on the coffee table before him.

"Well, while you're considering, I shall contact my other agents and see if they have had any luck determining her identity. If you would excuse me Mister Smith," Young rose and waddled back to his office. "See to it that Mister Smith remains here until I get back," he called over his shoulder.

"Yes Mister Young," a dark haired man said as he sat on a chair opposite of Roger.

"That's it." Roger unbuttoned his jacket and loosened his tie after Young had disappeared into his office. "Tell Mister Young that I've declined his offer."

"My boss is under the impression that you're the man for the job," the man opposite Roger told him.

"Well he must have got his facts wrong," Roger said as he took he took a sip of gin.

The man leaned in threateningly. "A few things you should know my boss. He never gets his facts wrong, and he never takes no for an answer."

"Well there's a first time for everything," Roger retorted. As he got up and walked away he noticed Young's bodyguards get up and form a circle around him.

"Well, not this time," the first man said as he closed on Roger.

Roger opened his mouth to speak but decided to survey the men surrounding him instead. "You don't want to do this," he sighed in resignation.

"I don't think you're in the position to tell me what I want to do," the guy said as he raised a fist and grasped the lapel of Roger's open jacket. "You got ten seconds to change your mind."

Roger looked down at his opponent's paw grasping his jacket. "As one professional to another, I'll make a counter offer. You got five seconds to remove your hand."

It was pointless. The burly young man holding him by the lapel wasn't going to budge. And neither was Roger. Time for 'Plan B.'

Suddenly Roger darted away from the spokesman of Young's enforcers. He slipped out of his jacket exposing his white shirt and black suspenders to kick the bruiser who was on the opposite side of the circle from the man clutching his blazer. Roger did hold on to the cuff of his now inside out jet black sleeve. He started to pull the man with his coat closer to him but had to dodge when the man lashed out with his foot. Apparently Young's men knew how to use their entire bodies as weapons too.

The man still held onto Roger's jacket though, so Roger pulled him into two of his cohorts to knock them both off their feet. The man still had his jacket, allowing Roger to close and use his black blazer to bind his limbs and hit him over the head with his free hand. Unfortunately having a free hand was a luxury that lasted less than a second, forcing Roger to kick backwards at a foe that was coming up behind him. Roger used his jacket to pull the first man up so he could deliver a blow to the chin, before turning to strike at a second enemy who was coming up on his right.

The first man released Roger's blazer as he fell. Now given a free moment, Roger folded his jacket vertically before tossing it onto a nearby hat rack stand.

One of his foes rose to his feet to deliver a right cross. Roger seized the man by the arm and pulled him over his shoulder to throw him to the floor. The negotiator then had to block a kick with his leg pushing his opponent's foot into the piano. Roger kicked out at the man's leg and was rewarded by seeing his assailant's leg bend at a strange angle. As the man howled in pain Roger struck him on the side of the head to take him out of the fight.

One of the rules of a fight is to never pause to admire your handiwork. Roger almost paid for pausing to admire his when he felt a hand seize his shoulder. Instinctively, he seized the arm of his ambusher and punched him in the face with his free hand. He didn't let go of the man's arm though and that came in handy when he saw someone charging at him with the piano stool with his peripheral vision. He swung his prisoner around to block the blow then pushed him across the piano. That left him face to face with the man who had tried to use the piano bench as a weapon, the enforcers' spokesman.

Roger backed away as he blocked his opponent's blows and kicks. The man had a fighting style similar to Roger's own. Roger had to be faster and stronger than he was or things could go very badly for him. Soon both men were trading blows and blocks until Roger managed to get two good strikes in, a kick and a punch. The man was still ready to fight but Roger marched forward confidently.

The man lashed out with animal fury and it was all Roger could do to block and counter his foe's punches. Some of Roger's counters were holds and that allowed Roger to get a few jabs in and even pull him off his feet. Once Roger had him off his feet he turned him upside down and sent him crashing onto the floor.

A savage cry from behind meant that one of Roger's other enemies wasn't down for the count. Roger sidestepped the charge and elbowed the man's face before he seized his arm and discovered this enemy was holding a switchblade knife.

Knives were trouble. Knives were messy. When you're in a knife fight, expect to get cut. Especially if you don't have a knife of your own. The only way to not get cut is to make sure that it isn't a knife fight.

His attacker may have had a knife but Roger had the man's arm. Without hesitation he pulled the man forward and slammed his hand into the piano keys causing a discordant tone with every impact. When the man dropped the knife Roger grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into the piano keys, causing tone deaf chords with every impact before throwing him across the room.

Oops. The guy hit the hat rack stand tipping it over and sending Roger's jacket careening to the floor. Roger dashed across the room and snatched his blazer off the rack just before hit the ground.

"What the devil is going on?" Lester Young demanded as he stormed back into the spacious parlor. "I leave the room to make a phone call and it sounds like a rogue megadeus is running loose in here!"

"Your men here decided to take a nap," Roger said as he nodded at the five men lying on the floor. He slung his blazer over his shoulder nonchalantly. "If you'll excuse me, I've got another appointment I have to get to, so I'll just show myself out. Good day Mister Young. Good luck finding your angel." He turned and strolled out the door as if nothing had happened.

Roger let out a breath when he made it back to his car. After what happened in Young's parlor, he wasn't sure he'd be allowed to leave. He pulled his sunglasses out of his jacket. Thank goodness he didn't allow his coat to hit the floor. He knew it was petty but a good pair of sunglasses was hard to come by these days.

As he started the car, he reflected on more serious matters. Apparently Lester Young didn't take 'no' for an answer. Regardless of the man's motives, that made him dangerous and likely no more fit to lead than Alex Rosewater had been. Roger couldn't really expect more out of a paranoid autocrat grasping for power. He wasn't surprised, but he was disappointed. Now he was going to have to keep an eye on the Paradigm Group's chairman. The Paradigm Corporation had decided that the world was their sandbox and that nobody else was allowed to play in it once before and the city was still reeling from the consequences. Roger couldn't let them do it _twice_.

* * *

"Confound it!" Lester Young grunted as he waddled back into his office. He picked up his telephone and dialed a number. "Yes, Donald, prepare that special contingency regarding Roger Smith to be executed at a moment's notice. No, I don't want to put it into operation right _now_ blast it! Do you think I _want_ to act as a bandit? As… as some kind of blackguard? No, I want it ready but I will only authorize it when we have no choice! Call me when the preparations are complete, but whatever you do, don't initiate it without hearing from me." He hung up the phone. "Confound it!"

* * *

_No one knows what happened forty years ago or recalls any event that happened before that day. But where did our Memories go? And what would happen if our Memories were found? Would those Memories enlighten us? Or destroy us?_

Six hundred and sixty floors below the city a lonely woman was sitting at a control panel in front of a bank of television screens. The blonde was an angelic image of loveliness. Her comely features expressed a beauty that could only be found in heaven despite the sinful curves of her body and her long shapely legs. She was clad a pink catsuit that hugged her buxom yet lithe body and left very little to the imagination. On the control panel was a red book titled '_Metropolis, by Angel Rosewater_'. "Why do I torture myself this way?" she sniffed. "Even self-hypnosis doesn't stop me from finding out!" Tears trickled down her lovely cheeks as she choked back a sob.

From behind her a hand gently clasped her shoulder. She turned in surprise to see a tall thin man with a blonde pompadour hairdo wearing a canary colored double-breasted suit. "Jason Beck!" the lovely woman cried.

"Hiya Angel," he said with an exaggerated grin. "Nighty-night!"

"Ah!" The last thing she saw was his black gloved fist.

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Indecent Proposal_


	4. Indecent Proposal

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Four: Indecent Proposal_

_Big Ear once told me that the most merciful thing in the world was the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. He flippantly described us as living on a placid isle of ignorance in the midst of the black seas of infinity and claimed that we were never meant to voyage far. The sciences, each straining in their own direction, have harmed us little he said, but some day we might piece together enough of our dissociated knowledge and open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful, insignificant position therein, that we'll have to either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age._

_Then he implied this had already happened._

Over six hundred floors beneath the city the man known as Jason Beck watched in horror as the truth of the event that took everyone's memories played out on the screens before him. Forty years ago the World That Was ended and now the humanity was reduced to hiding and shivering in a single city and a few isolated settlements. And now Jason Beck knew why.

At first he experienced denial. He would shake his head and scream at the monitors and plug his ears to block out the information issuing from the speakers. Then he became angry. He would shout at the computers and hit the screens in frustration. After that he started to bargain. He searched the database to prove the Memories were a hoax, to find something that would prove them wrong. When that failed he fell in a deep depression. He just sat on the floor and wept. Finally he reached acceptance. He laughed as the tears trickled out of his eyes. He laughed and laughed and laughed until he thought he would die laughing.

* * *

_There isn't anyone who truly remembers what happened over forty years ago. The people of this city have learned to go on with their lives even without a history. In the meantime they wear masks and play dress-up hoping that the roles they've chosen for themselves will be accepted by their fellow actors who don't know their lines or whether or not they've been cast in the right parts__._

"What in the world are you wearing?" Back at the Smith household, Roger's tone was somewhere between indignation and surprise. He was still clad in his black suit consisting of black double-breasted jacket, matching trousers, shoes and gloves. His shirt was crisp and white and his black tie was bisected by a gray stripe.

"I'm trying on a costume, Roger," the teenage girl replied in her cold quiet voice. "You were invited to a costume ball at the Empire Building and are allowed to bring an escort. Since you haven't invited anyone else, I will have to fill in."

"I wasn't planning to go to any costume party Dorothy," Roger grumbled as he wandered around the parlor. "Most of the city is wrecked and still can't get water or electricity. Why would I want to see the rich and powerful celebrate the fact that they can finally indulge themselves?"

"It will give you a chance to make contact with potential clients," Dorothy explained. "Someone probably wants to hire you without having to be overheard by a telephone operator and doesn't want to drive through the damaged streets. Really, that's the only reason I could imagine inviting an antisocial recluse like you."

"This is rich," Roger sneered. "An android giving me lessons on being warm and sociable. It's hilarious."

"It certainly is," Dorothy said drily. "I'm a mechanical imitation who's unable to articulate my feelings properly and I'm better at being human than you are. If it wasn't so pathetic it would be laughable. Assuming I _could_ laugh, Roger Smith."

"That was below the belt Dorothy," Roger pouted.

"It certainly was," Dorothy agreed. "You play the 'you're only an android' card whenever you're losing an argument. And far too soon I might add. It used to upset me but now it does for different reasons. You're getting lazy. A negotiator should be able to handle an argument better than _you_ do. I think that if you insist on making your living negotiating as a professional you should make all the wealthy contacts you can. You don't seem very good at it, and you're going to need any potential client you can get."

"All right, I'll go to the stupid party, just stop with the commentary!" Roger surrendered. "I miss the good old days when I was in charge around here." He fumed for while taking in the tasteful decorations and knickknacks that adorned the interior of his home. For a man who lived outside the domes, Roger Smith was actually very wealthy. He had renovated a white tower that was once a bank into his personal mansion that he used to store his secret weapon.

Over a year and a half ago, Roger and his butler Norman Burg adopted an orphan android by the name of R Dorothy Wayneright who had the physical appearance of a slender teenage girl with alabaster white skin and red hair in a short pageboy haircut. The barrette in her hair concealed the opening to her memory drive, and the high concentration of ferrous metals in her construction made her three times heavier than a human of her size. Despite her inability to convey human feelings Roger was sure that some kind of emotion resided in her metal frame, for the girl was opinionated and at times seemed genuinely caring. That didn't mean that she couldn't be a pain in the neck.

"Who are you supposed to be anyway?" Roger gave her outfit a thorough inspection. "Peter Pan's colorblind sister?"

Dorothy was wearing a colorful outfit that either belonged on the stage or in the fireplace. The girlish android was wearing a green barrette in her hair that matched the emerald domino mask over her eyes. A yellow cape draped across her shoulders and almost went down to her knees. Her chest was covered by a red doublet with green sleeves that didn't quite reach her elbows. A black belt with a small circular buckle girded her waist. A green miniskirt that left very little to the imagination nearly exposed the entirety of her slender lily white legs. Her feet were shod by outlandish green shoes that belonged on a Heaven's Day elf. Her forearms were covered by matching green gloves and her hands were clutching a green felt cap with a long pointed brim and a garish red feather tucked in the green hatband. "No," she said as she placed the hat on her head. "This is a woman's Robin Hood costume. Have you never seen a movie, Roger Smith?"

"You make a terrible Robin," Roger smirked. "Maybe if you put a badge with an 'R' on your chest people will know who you're supposed to be. Try a Maid Marion costume next time."

"Here is _your_ costume Roger Smith," Dorothy said as she handed him a large box. "I made sure it was black so there's no reason you can't wear it."

Roger frowned in distaste as he opened the box and pulled out a dark gray unitard with black briefs on the outside. "You've got to be kidding!" he protested. "I'm not wearing this. What is it supposed to _be_ anyway?"

"It's a bat costume," Dorothy replied. "It was the only costume that was black and in your size. You're lucky it wasn't a raven costume. I know you don't like to be called 'Crow-boy'."

"I'm not wild about being called 'Bat-man' either," Roger snorted as he examined the costume. "Aw come on, Dorothy! It's got a picture of a bat emblazoned on the chest! It's like some cheap kiddie costume or something!"

"It will look better with the cape and cowl," the girl assured him. "The cowl is a mask. Go ahead. Try it on."

"Not on your life," Roger snorted. "I'm not going to mess up my hair."

"Don't be a baby Roger Smith," Dorothy insisted. "Try it on."

"Not gonna happen," he shook his head. "Forget it. I'm not going."

From a certain angle Dorothy's neutral expression looked like a frown.

* * *

Six hundred and sixty floors beneath the city a beautiful woman groaned as she lay on the floor. She clutched at her golden hair as she checked her head for injures. Her bountiful bosom heaved under her pink catsuit and her long legs kicked as she fought to regain consciousness. "Oh…"

"HA-HA-HA-HA!" Beck laughed as he pulled at his hair and stared at the screens. "So _that's_ why they were built! It's all true! It's all a joke! HA-HA-HA-HA!"

"Jason Beck!" the girl groaned as she staggered to her feet. "Oh no!" Her head throbbed and the room was spinning around her. The blow he had given to her chin was nothing compared the concussion she had received when she hit the floor. Her vision was blurry and the room kept tilting at odd angles. She had to get help. "O'Reilly!" she cried as she staggered out the door. As she left white beams shot out of the wall and created the holographic pattern of huge glowing white wings spreading from her back. When she stumbled through a door the holograph shattered into what appeared to be hundreds of glowing white feathers that scattered throughout the chamber and disappeared as luminous snowflakes.

At that moment, all of the screens on the wall went dead. "What?" Beck squeaked. "The shows over? Just when it was getting' good! HA-HA-HA-HA!" he fell out of his chair and climbed back to his feet. "This is too much! I just gotta tell Crow-boy! He'll get a kick out of this!" He stumbled over the elevator.

As the elevator doors closed the blonde returned accompanied by a man who appeared to be wearing a motorcycle helmet and a gas mask. "Oh no!" she cried as her companion rushed over to the elevator. "He's getting away!"

"Quickly Miss Angel," the masked man ordered in a strangely calm voice. "You must reactivate the computers so we can override the elevator controls. It's our only chance of stopping him before he disappears into the tunnels."

"Oh…" Angel clutched at the back of her head and leaned against the wall to slide awkwardly down into a sitting position. She closed her eyes and leaned forward.

"Miss Angel," he exclaimed calmly as he went to her side. "Are you all right?"

As the elevator rose Beck leaned against the wall and slumped to a crouching position. "Wait a minute! I know how the entire city is set up! Why should I get it over with so quickly? Just think of the fun I could have!" He laughed some more. "They thought that _Alex Rosewater_ was bad?" he muttered. His smile looked more like a predatory grimace. "Wait 'til they get a load of me…"

* * *

That afternoon found Roger back at his desk constructing another hourglass.

"Mail for you sir," Norman said as he handed him a small envelope.

"What?" he blinked as he looked up from his work. "I thought the mail already came in today."

"There was a knock at the door and an android delivered this to me by hand sir," the old man said as he handed the envelope to Roger.

Roger looked at the envelope. There was no return address. When he opened it he pulled out a sheet of paper and a white feather. "What? Angel's perfume?" he muttered as he read the message. His eyes narrowed and his mouth became a thin hard line.

Norman gave Roger an inquisitive look. "Sir?"

"Tell Dorothy we'll be going to the party after all," he sighed.

"Jolly good sir," the old man smiled. "I'm sure Miss Dorothy will be delighted!"

"Yeah," Roger grumbled. "Good for her."

* * *

At Paradigm Headquarters, a meeting of the Board of Directors was in progress.

"So there it stands gentleman," Lester Young announced in an imperious tone. "The issue is one of security. For the last four decades this company has provided our civilization with economic and physical security, but the last decade has weathered away the population's confidence in us. The deplorable actions of Alex Rosewater and his confederates have left us all vulnerable. Gazing around the table, I notice empty seats where members of the board have been taken into custody to answer for charges of conspiracy and corruption.

"We all remember what life was like under Alex Rosewater," the portly chairman continued. "Let us be honest with ourselves: None of us are without blame. The defense of only following orders will not do in the people's current mood. The only instrument we have to keep the citizen's faith in us is Colonel Dastun, and only while he continues his campaign to whittle away at our number. We cannot rebuild the city because we are being continuously audited, our every move under scrutiny. The reason why all of us are not in jail is because they need us to provide an infrastructure or our entire civilization will collapse. Gentlemen, we must hang together or we shall most certainly hang separately.

"We must regain control," Young announced. "It's the only way we'll be allowed to rebuild the city and make it fit for human beings again. We are paralyzed by the way we are turning against each other and our every move is being questioned. We have to restore the people's faith in our ability to secure law and order. We must show them that it is the Paradigm Corporation who protects the city, not the black megadeus."

"How?" an executive asked. "The Big project is a total failure. The red and white megadeuses wouldn't work unless a total psychopath controlled them. They became more dangerous than the threats they were supposed to protect us from."

"We don't even know how Rosewater finally got them to work," another agreed.

"Well I guess that's my cue," a whimsical voice announced as a door opened. In walked Jason Beck grinning like a maniac in his canary colored double breasted suit. "I can tell you what you want to know. I know it all. I know all your dirty little secrets!"

"Who is this joker?" a board member asked.

"I recognize him!" said another. "That's Jason Beck! He's a kidnapper and bank robber! How'd he get here?"

"Ah," Beck shrugged with mock embarrassment as he took the seat on the opposite side of the long table to Lester Young. "You know, your security, it covers all the ways in here." He pointed at the floor below him. "Except under the ground." When the board members blinked in disbelief he continued. "It's amazing! Everybody's afraid to go underground, but nobody knows why! Doesn't that strike you as strange? I found out why by that way, and it's a real pip!"

"_What is the meaning of this sir_?" Lester Young demanded. "Have you come here for a reason or have you simply come here blather at us?"

"Oh!" Beck slapped his forehead. "That's right! I didn't come here to make a speech; I came here to sell you something! I wanna make a deal. An offer you can't refuse!"

"Well get on it with it!" Young barked. "This is a private meeting Mister Beck. If you can't keep our attention for the next thirty seconds you will be propelled from the building! In handcuffs if necessary! Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly clear Mister Young," Beck smiled. "Somebody said something about not knowing how Rosewater got the two megadeuses to work? That's easy! _I_ did it!"

"You did what?" an executive asked.

"I got the red and the white megadeuses to work. Me." Beck pointed to himself. "Here. Your answer's right here. It was me. I got 'em to function properly."

"Continue," Lester Young's piggy eyes narrowed in interest.

"You see, there's a secret," Beck's eyes narrowed as he grinned evilly, "a secret to the megadeuses. The kings of the megadeuses, the Bigs, they gotta have a domineus to work properly. That's the answer. That's the missing component. The domineus."

"What's a domineus?" an executive asked.

"The domineus is the most dangerous piece of the Big there is," Beck purred. "The evil _pilot_. You see the Bigs won't take just anybody to be their pilot. They only accept a person known as a domineus. Y'see _domineus_ comes from _dominus_. It means 'lord' or 'master'. Which is what _you_ guys used to be, back in the good old days."

"What do you mean?" another board member asked.

"_Where_ shall we begin?" Beck grinned smugly. "A year ago, these cops and lawyers wouldn't _dare_ cross any of you. I mean, what happened? Did Alex Rosewater eliminate everyone who had any guts or something? You guys can't even keep order in your own house and the domineus can set his dog on you whenever he wants to."

"What are you talking about?" the first executive demanded.

"Currently the only existing domineus is piloting the black megadeus," Beck drawled, "and his best friend is in charge of the military police, so you can't touch _him_. And if you kill off the domineus you risk leaving the city defenseless the next time a giant robot comes out of the desert and lays waste to the city! It's a real catch twenty-two, isn't it?"

"So what are you proposing?" a board member asked.

"It's simple," Beck smiled. "Kill the domineus."

"We can't do that!" Young cried above the babble of voices. "The city would be helpless without the megadeus!"

"I understand if you want to think about it," Beck smiled as he pulled a business card out of his pocket. "Here's my card. I'll be home tomorrow if anyone wants to reach me but tonight I've got an engagement. Ta-ta everyone."

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Tonight's Entertainment_


	5. Tonight's Entertainment

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Five: Tonight's Entertainment_

That evening a long black Cadillac drove up to the front of the skyscraper known as the Empire Building. The car radiated sleek power from its full wide grill to its huge sharp tailfins. Exiting the driver's seat was a masked broad-shouldered man wearing a bat eared cowl and a scalloped cape over a grey unitard. Long black gloves decorated with three fins along the exterior arms covered his hands and forearms. His boots were the same onyx color of his gloves as were the dark briefs that fit over the tightfitting grey bodysuit. On the chest was the silhouette of a bat, its wings spread wide. The cowl was a full face mask, exposing only the eyes, mouth, and chin. The bottom of the nose was exposed allowing the man to breathe.

"I don't know how you talked me into this," Roger grumbled as he exited the car. Somehow he managed to avoid shutting the car door on his cape.

"You need to get out more," Dorothy said as she got out of the passenger side of the black Cadillac. She straightened her green 'Robin Hood' hat and spun once to allow the air to fill her yellow cape and before she extended her green gloved hand to Roger. She had literally taken Roger's advice and pinned a circular tin badge that displayed an 'R' to the breast of her costume's red doublet.

"I feel ridiculous," Roger growled as he activated a remote control and the car drove away by itself. Parking attendants gaped and scratched their heads as it left. "This has got to be the dumbest outfit in the history of mankind!" Roger grumbled as he as he took her hand and walked up the concrete steps into the Empire Building. "I look like an idiot."

"The costume is black," Dorothy said as Roger showed the sharply dressed private security officers his invitation. "I know the costume is ugly, but you're in such good physical shape you actually make that outfit work. I have to admit that the utility belt you added spoils the image somehow. Don't you and Norman wear those when you're working on Big O?"

"Where do you expect me to carry my keys?" Roger gestured at the thick yellow leather belt synched around his waist. The belt featured large military style pouches. "My wallet? The gadgets I have to take with me whenever I go anywhere with you? This stupid outfit doesn't have any pockets."

"You don't have to carry an arsenal with you whenever you leave the house with me," Dorothy assured him as they entered an ornate elevator.

"Don't I?" Roger sneered through his mask as the elevator raced upwards. "Come on, Dorothy, your Memories and components can be used to bring a megadeus to life, and who knows what else. Every time I leave the house with you I have to carry enough gadgets and weapons to arm a platoon."

"You're exaggerating," the girl said.

"The first day we met I had to launch missiles out of the Griffin," Roger insisted. "When I travel with you I really _do_ have to carry a lunchbox full of missiles when I go to work. In the meantime, Norman put a duplicate of my watch in your belt buckle. If I lose my belt, it will be up to you to summon Big O."

Roger was glad he was wearing a mask so Dorothy couldn't see him blush. The truth was that after being held captive twice in the last month he was feeling paranoid and wanted to be ready for anything. Dorothy was right though. The dumb belt made the bad costume worse. What was he supposed to _be_ anyway? A vampire who worked in construction? He decided that while he was at Jimmy Shore's party he wouldn't go around dropping his name. If nobody knew who was in this humiliating outfit, maybe he'd be able to live it down.

The clear glass elevator afforded a spectacular view of the ruined dome inside the ruined dome that was Paradigm Headquarters. What was Lester Young up to, and what did he want with Angel? And why was Angel trying to contact Roger now of all times? The caped and cowled negotiator couldn't blame her for not wanting to meet him at his home, and the telephone couldn't be trusted. She knew better than to put anything in writing.

A costume ball was the perfect setting for a rendezvous when he thought about it. What better way to preserve plausible deniability? Even if Young was spying on him the photographs of two people in costume weren't incriminating.

When they reached the correct floor, Roger paused before entering the ballroom. The last masquerade party he attended was also on the top floor of a skyscraper, but that one had resulted in the death of all of the guests.

The ballroom was filled with an assortment of revelers in a dizzying assortment of costumes and masks. Pirates drank with cowboys. Witches danced with vampires. Women hid their faces behind masks while displaying their legs as other parts of their bodies peeked out from various slits and gaps in their scanty clothing. Wine was poured, food was consumed and laughter was heard. After everything that happened in the last year Roger found the entire scene to be in horribly bad taste.

"Ladies first," he bowed and gestured with his cape when Dorothy stood frozen in the entryway. "_You_ were the one who wanted to come here, after all."

"Will you be introducing me to your friend Roger Smith?" Dorothy asked as he took her hand and led her into the ballroom.

"Don't be silly," he snorted under his bat eared cowl. "I don't want anybody I know to recognize me in this! I'd never be able to live it down."

"You really don't know how to have fun, do you Roger Smith?" the girl asked him.

"I used to," he sneered, "before _you_ walked into my life!"

"You're a louse Roger Smith," Dorothy retorted. "Perhaps you should have dressed as a louse instead of a bat."

"Just keep your eyes peeled for Angel," the black clad negotiator told her. "I want to talk to her and get out of here as soon as possible."

"Do you have any idea what she'll be dressed as?" the little android asked him.

"Not in the slightest," he admitted. "Just look for a gal with a figure with so many curves if it was a map a man would get dizzy trying to read it."

"Look Roger," the android girl pointed at a group of people. "People are dancing."

Roger was scanning the crowd. "Eyes on the prize Dorothy," he muttered. "This isn't a date. We're here to contact Angel."

"You are _such_ a louse Roger Smith," Dorothy decided as she walked off into the crowd. Roger ignored her as he continued to hunt for Angel. "Bingo!" he smiled when he saw a blonde dressed in an angel costume. He strolled up behind her. "A bird whose wings have been plucked will shed all its feathers and turn into the beast it was before it evolved into a bird," he whispered in her ear. That was the message the Union agent that Angel called 'Vera' or 'Agent 12' wanted to pass on to Angel, but Angel never told Roger what it meant. Maybe this time…

"Weirdo!" the woman dressed as the angel said as she turned around and slapped him. She wasn't Angel; she was just a blonde who was almost the same height. "Get lost you pervert!"

"Get away from my girl Bat-man!" ordered her boyfriend in the devil costume.

"Sorry," Roger nodded an apology as he backed off. "I thought she was someone else."

"Yeah right," he grunted. "She's not even wearing a mask!"

Roger sucked in a breath and counted to ten as he tried to disappear into the crowd of revelers. Time to hit the bar. Maybe Angel would be there.

"Smooth," a familiar voice said behind him.

"Angel!" Roger smiled too relieved to be embarrassed. Soon his torment would be over. He turned around and drank her in.

Angel had a penchant for tight clingy formfitting outfits, and once again she didn't disappoint. Clinging like a second skin to her sugar and spice and everything nice was a black catsuit that made anatomy lessons easy. Covering her comely face was a domino mask and poking out of her lovely blonde locks were two black plastic cat ears. It was all in black, not a hint of pink in sight. It was as if she was deliberately playing to one of his fetishes.

"Nice catsuit," he grinned like an idiot. "I think we found your look!"

"I think we found yours too," she purred as she leaned in and stroked his chest. "Nice leotards, Bat-man. I didn't think a guy could pull this off but you've got the body for it."

Roger's cheeks were burning and he really wanted to take the mask off but he promised himself that he would die before he allowed anyone else to recognize him. "I should've dressed like a dog," he flirted back. "With you dressed up as a cat-woman I want to chase you."

She giggled girlishly. "You say the sweetest things!" she slapped his shoulder playfully. "I should've known you'd wear black."

"How'd you recognize me anyway?" he asked.

"I've been following the girl dressed as an angel all night," she told him. "Sooner or later you would check her out to see if she was me. I was just lucky that she looks so much like me. Care to dance?" she asked as a ballad started playing. "We can talk on the dance floor. We won't draw attention to ourselves that way."

"I'd be delighted," Roger smiled as he led her to the dance floor. "What did you have to tell me?"

"Beck is insane," she announced grimly.

"Tell me something I _don't_ know," he shrugged as he placed a hand on her hip as she placed a hand on the back of his shoulder.

"No you don't understand," she shook her head as their free hands clasped. "He's changed," she continued as he started to lead. "He's lost his mind. If we're lucky he'll commit suicide. If we're not we've got another Schwartzwald on our hands."

"Nice," Roger said as they swayed to the music. "What makes you think he's more unstable than usual? I know he's eccentric but he always struck me as someone who _acts_ crazy rather than someone who _is_ crazy."

"That's changed," Angel had real fear in her eyes. "He's got something too. He's got access to Memories that no one else has. I don't know what he's up to but he could do a lot of damage with what he knows."

"So why are you telling me?" he asked. "I'm just a negotiator. Do I look like someone who fights crime?"

"Come on Roger, get real," she snorted. "We both know it's only a matter time before he comes after you. Why can't you just take the information I gave you and say thank you?"

"You act like he's planning to do something big," Roger said as he scanned the room by looking over her shoulder. "If he was going to do that, he would probably need…" he stopped abruptly. "Dorothy!" He scanned the crowd. She was nowhere in sight. Why did she have to be so short? "I better go find her!"

"You actually brought her here?" Angel gasped in horror.

"Yeah, I thought it would be safer than leaving her alone," he admitted as he took her hand and led her off the dance floor. "We better find her. Let's split up and meet by the door."

"Will do," she nodded as she blended into the crowd. He didn't see the blonde clutch the back of her head and steady herself against a table. Angel still hadn't completely recovered from hitting the floor earlier that day.

Since he assumed Angel was scanning the partygoers, Roger decided to go outside the ballroom and check out the rest of the floor. If Beck decided to spirit Dorothy away he'd have to get her away from the party if he wanted to remain unseen.

He checked the elevator. Nothing suspicious there. No green domino mask or Robin Hood hat that might have fallen off the little android's head. No drag marks from hauling a two hundred and eighty pound girl who's made of metal away. Hopefully Dorothy was fine, still in the ballroom and wondering what happened to Roger. Just in case, he decided to head for the service elevator. When he thought about it, the service elevator was the easiest way to leave without being spotted.

Roger was almost to the elevator when it opened. He instinctively darted into the nearest closet and shut the door. It wasn't out of any ability to detect danger; it was more of a knee jerk reaction to being dressed as a giant bat. His ability to detect danger kicked in when he heard Beck's voice and the sound of shotguns being cocked. So Dorothy hadn't been abducted. Yet.

* * *

Angel was sitting at the bar trying to stop her dizzy spells. Dancing with Roger had been even stupider than coming to meet him in person but she couldn't resist. It was probably her best chance to be so close to him and now he had run off to save Dorothy and left her alone again.

She nearly choked on her drink when the door opened and an assortment of men with white greasepaint on their faces entered wielding firearms. Each of the men was made up to look like clowns, fitting into a costume party while being difficult to identify. She _could_ identify the tall thin clown with the blonde pompadour hairdo when he announced his presence.

"We made it," Beck joked before he fired his shotgun at the roof. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen," he drawled while his men spread out and pointed their guns at the partygoers. "_We_ are tonight's entertainment! I only have one question: _Where_ is Angel Rosewater?" He walked over to the petrified woman dressed as an angel and grabbed her chin to examine her closely before he released her and kept searching. "Nope. Close! Patricia Lovejoy? Anybody heard of Patricia Lovejoy? How about Casey Jenkins? I'm not pointin' fingers at anyone, she's got a lotta names! Celina Kyle? How about Irene Adler? Ever heard of an Irene Adler?"

He stopped next to a man wearing a cape and a domino mask. "You!" He pulled out a photograph. "You seen this woman? Anyone here seen this woman? I gotta talk to her!" he called in a louder voice. "I _really_ gotta talk to her! We're not here to hurt anyone," he announced in a calmer tone. "Just tell us where she is and we'll be on our way. Don't gotta spoil the party for anyone! I'm just looking for a _woman…_" His voice became dark and threatening before he lapsed back into a reasonable tone again."…who none of you really know in the first place. Honest. That's all. I got an idea. All the ladies, go to one side of the room. Okay?" He gestured with his shotgun. "Come on. All the ladies to the left side of the room. You wouldn't want any of these guns to go off now _would you_?"

* * *

In the meantime Roger peaked out of the closet and noticed that Beck had only left one man to guard the service elevator. It was the short tubby guy who dressed as a beatnik, 'T-Bone' Tortellini. Fine. One man was no problem.

"Get back with the others," T-Bone ordered as Roger marched up to him. Roger replied by grabbing his shotgun and knocking him senseless with first the buttstock and then the barrel. The caped and cowled negotiator didn't even watch the short tubby beatnik fall to the floor as he marched down the hall and disassembled the gun. He threw the parts to the either side of him and headed for the ballroom.

* * *

Back in the ballroom the women were being marched to the side of the room closest to the bar. While the ladies were moving, one girl in particular caught Beck's eye. "Ah-ah-ah!" he warned her playfully as he brandished his shotgun. It was a short slender girl in a red and green Robin Hood costume with a yellow cape. "Well hello beautiful," he purred as he strolled playfully towards her. "Don't I know you? You look _really_ familiar," he teased as he pulled a combat knife out of his jacket and pretended to comb his hair with it. He removed her green Robin Hood hat to admire her egg white skin and brick red pageboy haircut. "Don't I know you? Dove?"

Beck snapped his fingers and handed his shotgun to his only henchman who looked like a clown when he wasn't wearing makeup. He then churlishly seized the front of the girl's green miniskirt. "You look nervous," he teased as he held the knife next to her crotch. The girl remained as still as a statue as he cut her miniskirt upwards from the hem to the waist until the ruined skirt fell off her body. Thankfully, the girl's matching green briefs still remained to hide her modesty. "_Now_ I know who you are!" he snapped his fingers in exaggerated surprise. "You know I didn't recognize you in that—"

He didn't finish his sentence, for the girl slapped him away with unnatural force and sent him tumbling across the floor. Although his men were alarmed, Beck seemed to find the incident funny. "A little fight in you," he chuckled as wiped the blood off his mouth and started walking back to her. "I like that."

"Then yer gonna love me!" A man's voice growled. From out of the crowd a man with broad shoulders in a black and gray bat costume appeared and struck Beck sending him tumbling backwards. Two of Beck's men had closed at the girl's sign of resistance allowing the masked man to seize one and slam him into another.

"Roger," the girl in the ruined Robin Hood costume said softly as the spectacle unfolded before her.

"Dorothy!" Roger ordered in his normal voice. "Get out of here!" Roger used the man he had captured as a weapon against a second gunman before throwing him to the ground. When a large henchman closed the negotiator struck the man in the back of the neck with a chopping blow before sending him forward to trip over the second fallen gunman. As they tried to get up Roger put one man in a headlock while chopping the back of the neck of another.

Beck pulled yet another henchman who was covering the crowd into the fray. While Roger was finishing off the first three lackeys the fourth struck Roger from behind and sent him to the floor. As Roger tried to rise, the man hugged the caped negotiator from behind pinning his arms and keeping him from rising to his feet.

Beck kicked Roger in the stomach and the ribs with a bestial fury. The grin on the criminal's face was truly frightening.

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Don't Let Go_


	6. Don't Let Go

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Six: Don't Let Go_

Suddenly the man holding Roger was grabbed by the petite teenage girl in the damaged Robin Hood costume. The girl seized the henchman by the belt and the back of his jacket and ignored his struggling as she held him over her head before turning to throw him through the air at a pair of gunmen who were stationed near the bar. Dorothy only hit one of them but as his partner leveled his shotgun at her he was attacked by a tall curvaceous blonde woman in a domino mask and a black catsuit. Angel kicked him in the face with a long slender leg before striking him in the face with his own shotgun.

Roger used the opportunity to punch Beck in the stomach sending him to the floor for a third time. This time Beck decided not to get back up immediately. This time the crook decided to crawl towards a pistol that had fallen to the floor.

"Oh no you don't!" Roger snapped as he reached into his utility belt and extracted a small flat bladed plate of metal the employees of Yoshifuda Yakamoto Industries would call a 'shuriken' and tossed it at the pistol with a snappy backhand throw. The small bladed weapon cut Beck's fingers, causing him to drop the gun.

Beck looked back at Roger, his face filled with confusion and recognition. "Oh no," he shook his head in disbelief. He then started laughing and was helpless when Roger grabbed him and held him in a headlock.

"Call 'em off, Beck!" Roger growled in his ear as he used him as a shield. "Or I break your neck!"

"Crow-boy, if you were capable of having _that_ kind of fun, you would've done it over a year ago!" Beck laughed as his clown makeup was smeared by the tears trickling out of his eyes. "Nice outfit by the way! Has little Dorothy been driving you batty or was it Angel?" Whatever else Beck was going to say was lost in his hysterical laughter. Roger's face burned under his mask in humiliation.

"Let him go!" Bobo AKA 'Dove' Jacobs, the henchman who looked like a clown even when he wasn't wearing makeup, shrieked. "Or I shoot this hostage!" He held a pistol at the quivering woman who was dressed like an angel.

Dorothy reached for her large belt buckle and extracted a man's large black watch and pressed a button. With a pneumonic hiss, she shot a slender cord and grappling hook at the massive chandelier high above the ceiling. When the slender metal cord curled around the chandelier, she used it to swing from her location across the room and released it to propel herself towards Bobo feet first.

The clown screamed in his high pitched effeminate voice as Dorothy's comical green elf shoes came straight for his face to knock him off his feet. He whined as he tumbled backwards across the room tripping several party guests. The woman dressed as an angel moaned as she fainted. Dorothy caught her with one arm while the metal cord retracted back into the watch.

"Call 'em off!" Roger growled as he squeezed Beck's throat. Beck's insane laughter was cut off when the costumed negotiator shut off his airway but started up again when he allowed the crook to speak. "There's just no reasoning with this joker," the negotiator muttered under his breath before Beck elbowed him in the ribs. "Oof! Dammit! Beck!" Roger lunged for him, but two of his henchmen got in the negotiator's way.

Beck chanted off a sequence of numbers as he darted away. "Seven, zero, one, three…" He blinked in triumph as when he saw the woman in the black catsuit fighting his men covering the bar. "Angel! There she is! Gotcha!" He pulled out a remote control and hit a button.

Back in the hall the service elevator rose with its deadly cargo. When the door opened a huge brick red robot shaped vaguely like a scorpion lumbered out. T-bone barely woke up in time to yelp and roll out of the way.

Screams erupted in the ballroom as the scorpion robot burst through the double doors, knocking some of the archway loose as it did so.

"Let's amscray boys," Beck drawled as his robot crashed and scuttled its way through the room. "We got what we came for."

"Dorothy!" Roger had seen that type of robot before. A horde of them had attacked his home months ago and made off with Dorothy. Even now he could see a scorpion-bot fly away with Dorothy in the pincer on the end of its tail.

Dorothy's eyes widened as she drew in a breath. Androids don't have to breathe. Was she having an emotional reaction?

No wait. The robot wasn't after Dorothy at all! It was after…

"Angel!" Roger dashed towards the blonde as fast as his costume would let him.

"Eek!" Angel screamed and ran away, but with the robot between her and the door she could only run towards the windows. When she reached them, she had only an impenetrable clear wall blocking an eight story drop! "Aah!" she screamed as she was seized as a pincer closed around her waist and lifted her off her feet.

"Angel!" Roger cried as he and Dorothy ran to the robot. The robot lowered Angel behind it as it crashed through the window to drop to the street below.

Without thinking, Roger hurled himself through the shattered opening afterwards with Dorothy close behind. Below them the scorpion robot and its squirming prey were coming back up. Even from above the flare from the rockets installed on the bottom of the robot could be seen. Almost as a synchronized pair, Roger and Dorothy activated the cables and grappling hooks hidden in their watches. Each cord wrapped around a back leg of the flying robot. Angel yelped as the robot rocked first to the left and then to the right as the cords went taut and weight of the dynamic duo was borne by the flying monster.

Beck couldn't resist watching them as they swung precariously from the back of the unsteady robot. "_Where_ does he get those wonderful toys?" he muttered.

The scorpion bot dipped low as the front of it rose. With the weight of three people on the back of it the robot was overbalanced. Roger and Dorothy each retracted their lines and rose to climb a metal multisegmented leg.

As they careened out of control a hatch in the front of the robot opened and the scorpion bot shot out a grappling hook and cable of its own. "Hang on!" Roger yelled as the robot deactivated its rockets and allowed itself to swing forward. "Ah!" he cried as he was flung off the robot's back to swing down and crash against the window of a nearby skyscraper.

"Ah!" Angel yelped as she was shook like a wet mop.

"Roger," Dorothy said quietly before she swung down to retrieve him. "Roger, are you all right?"

"Ah!" Roger grunted in pain as Dorothy put an arm around him and retracted the line to reel them back up to the robot. "I'll be alright, Dorothy! You've got to free Angel!" When she didn't respond he continued. "When this thing gets to the roof it'll be able to fight us! It'll shake us off like fleas!"

Dorothy nodded. As Roger climbed up on the back leg of the robot, she jumped into the air and landed on the tail of the robot holding Angel. The tail was extended to allow Angel to be perpendicular to the ground but the poor woman was being held upside down. "Get ready," the masked android said as she sat to straddle the tail and wrap her legs around it. She pushed a button on the watch and a laser shot out to attack the joint where the pincer came together.

Seeing Dorothy use the laser gave Roger the inspiration to use the laser on his own watch, only he aimed it at a window that was directly above the robot. He narrowly missed the cable holding up the robot and kept them from plummeting to the ground. The window cracked under the beam, but at this angle the glass was reflecting too much of the light.

Dorothy deactivated the laser and used her tiny little green gloved hands to pull the pincer that was holding Angel open.

By now the blood rushing to Angel's head and the injury to her cranium she had received earlier was making her loopy. "Holy force of gravity!" she cried before she fell headfirst.

With his line still attached to the scorpion robot, Roger launched himself out and caught Angel as she fell. They then swung back to the building and smashed through the window he had cracked with his laser.

Dorothy frowned as she saw the two disappear into the floor below her before she used the line on her watch to swing from the robot's tail into the same opening.

"I've had enough of this," Roger grumbled as he set the dizzy Angel down and pushed some buttons on his watch. White letters appeared on the black clock face reading 'CAR'.

Down in the parking garage, the lights to Roger's long black Cadillac snapped on as the engine turned over. With a roar of the ignition, the Cadillac drove away out of the parking garage and out to the street.

"We've got to get the elevator!" Angel gasped as she and Roger each put an arm around the other's shoulder and limped away from the shattered window.

"No, the stairs!" Roger shook his head. "I'm not going to be trapped when that thing comes down the elevator shaft!" The floor they were on was composed of offices arranged around a maze of cubicles. Few lights were on, so Dorothy led the way with the halogen lamp hidden behind her barrette.

They found the staircase and descended the rectangular spiral as fast as Roger and Angel's legs could carry them. Especially when they heard a tearing/crashing noise above them. "The robot!" Angel gasped.

"No time to take the stairs!" Roger said as he put his arm around the blonde. "Come on!" As the cord from his watch entwined around the bannister he climbed over it and jumped, lowering himself and Angel to down to the first floor. Dorothy mimicked his actions and followed without comment. When they reached to bottom, they ducked under the stairs above to avoid getting hit by falling debris.

Once her feet were on the ground, Angel pushed away from Roger and ran to the exit. "The door!" she cried as she pushed and pulled against it. "It's locked!"

Bam! Dorothy body slammed the metal fire door knocking it off its hinges. For a moment both Roger and Angel stared at the android's impressive accomplishment. Then pieces of stairway banister started raining down behind them as the scorpion robot above made room for itself while descending the staircase.

"Move!" Roger pushed Angel forward, but Dorothy was already dashing away.

Dorothy was the first one through the double doors leading to the street. It's a pity she didn't open them first, unless you want to count knocking the doors off their hinges. Roger and Angel followed afterwards. "Get in the car," Roger hissed.

"Which one?" Angel asked as she looked at the cars parked by the curb.

At that moment Roger's black Cadillac pulled up and double parked in front of the building. "Get in." Roger opened the passenger side door for Angel.

"Shouldn't Dorothy sit up with you?" Angel asked coyly. "I mean, she _is_ the girl you've chosen, isn't she?"

"Now's not the time for these ridiculous insinuations!" Roger snapped. "For the last time, she's just a friend!"

"Next you'll be telling me she's just an old school chum," Angel winked as she climbed in the car.

Dorothy was revealed to have been standing behind Angel when the blonde entered the car. Her hands were on her hips causing the yellow cape of her damaged costume to drape behind her like a banner. "I thought that I was going to sit in front Roger."

"Sorry Dorothy," Roger said as he opened the door to the back seat. "Angel's riding shotgun this time old chum."

"You're a louse Roger Smith."

As they pulled away from the curb, the robot came out of the building and knocked over a parked car as it pursued them. Hubcap sized metal disks dropped out the back of the Cadillac as it sped down the street. As the scorpion bot passed over them, the disks exploded, reducing the robot to shards of metal.

"That was close," Angel said as she pulled the hidden barrette that held the black plastic cat ears out of her hair. She pulled the domino mask off her face and then teased her golden locks back into place.

"What did I tell you, Dorothy?" he called to the back seat as the car stopped at a red light. "The utility belt was a good idea. I really do have to carry an arsenal with me whenever I go anywhere with you."

"I stand corrected," said the masked android in the back seat. "But this time they were after Angel."

"Good point," Roger nodded as another car pulled up to their left to stop at the light. "That's right, Angel, why was he after you anyway? I know that neither the Union nor the Paradigm Company are happy with you, but why would…" His voice trailed away as he glanced to his left and recognized the man in the passenger seat of the yellow car next to them. "Beck!"

Beck had been wiping the clown makeup off his face and was staring at Roger with the same expression of disbelief. "Crow-boy?"

Roger didn't wait for the light. He took off like a bat out of hell.

"Come on you idiots get after them!" Beck shouted as he slapped his driver. He reached down and picked up a walkie-talkie to talk to the men in the two cars behind him. "They're in the black Cadillac! Everybody get the black Cadillac!"

"Why are they after you?" Roger growled as he turned into an alley.

Both the women in the car were silent.

Roger turned left when his Cadillac left the alley to turn onto a busy street with traffic. He was about to activate the mines he used to eliminate the robot but now there were too many innocents around and the collateral damage would be unacceptable. Beck and his men didn't have that restriction: They were firing their pistols out their windows at the Caddie, their bullets barely missing the black tail fins. Vehicles and pedestrians alike scrambled to get out of their way.

When they broke free of the traffic, all four vehicles managed to get some speed. Roger hit a button on his dashboard as they approached an intersection and made a tight turn. A cable and grappling hook shot out to the left from under the Cadillac and wrapped itself around a street lamp, giving Roger the leverage he needed to complete the turn at that speed.

Beck's car, on the other hand, pivoted left but kept skidding forward as his driver tried to match the turn. A truck skidded to a stop and hit his car as the truck itself was rear ended by a tailgater who was rear ended by yet another tailgater. "Dammit!" he growled as the other two cars filled with his henchmen passed him by. "You'll pay for this Crow-boy!"

Roger himself was forced to hit the brakes when the street was blocked by a bulldozer that was moving debris from a previous megadeus battle. Roger cursed. The streets were a maze these days. Nothing else for it but to make a run for it. "Let's go!" he ordered as he and the girls left the black Cadillac. The three costumed runners fled down the street past startled pedestrians. As they turned left into an alley, Roger realized he forgot something. "Shields!" he muttered as he pulled a small black box out of his utility belt and hit a button. Back in the street the Cadillac elevated itself on a central jack and transformed into an armored black box. At least Beck wouldn't be able to damage his car.

When they reached a street Angel screamed as a car filled with Beck's henchmen appeared in front of them and skidded from right to left as the driver attempted to pivot the car to face them. They knew it was a car full of Beck's henchmen because the men in the car were firing pistols at them. Roger turned Angel around and fled back into the alley as the car skidded to a stop.

They ran back into the alley and turned into an adjacent lot surrounded by either fences or the backs of buildings on all sides as their pursuers zipped past them down the alley in their car. Dorothy looked up and saw a metal bridge connecting the roofs of two of the buildings. She pressed a hidden stud on her watch before she discovered it was broken. She must have broken it when smashing down the door to get out of the stairwell.

Roger noticed her predicament. Great. One line, three passengers. Would the reel be able to support all of them? Roger weighed over two hundred pounds. Dorothy weighed almost three hundred. That was about five hundred pounds between them. "How much do you weigh?" he asked the blonde in the black catsuit.

"About a hundred and eight, I think," Angel stammered.

He heard screeching tires. He had to try it. He shot a line out of his watch. "Hold on," he ordered. As Dorothy and Angel embraced him, the three of them rose just as the pursuing car reached them. The top of the cab missed Roger's feet by less than a foot.

The tiny reel in the watch retracted so that they were almost three-fourths of the way up before it stopped with a jerk. Angel let out a squeak as she held onto Roger for dear life. Roger's eyes crossed. Between Angel and Dorothy it felt like his arm was being pulled out its socket. Beneath them the car full of killers was backing up and heading towards them. Roger and the girls were sitting ducks. It would be only seconds before those jokers decided to fire their guns at them.

"Angel, grab Dorothy!" Roger ordered. "Dorothy? Can you reach my watch?"

"Yes," she said as her hand closed around his wrist.

"As soon as Angel as a good hold of you, you unbuckle it," he grunted.

"Roger." Was that a protest? Or an acknowledgement?

"Whatever you do, don't let go!" he gasped.

The tiny android released the watchband and the negotiator slid away from them. Angel screamed as she and Dorothy went up and Roger plummeted down.

Roger bounced off the trash cans and rolled onto the pavement as the car stopped beside him. His eyes were closed and his body was as limp as a rag doll.

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: A Private Consultation_


	7. A Private Consultation

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Seven: A Private Consultation_

On a metal bridge between rooftops, Dorothy climbed over the railing and pulled Angel up. She looked down to see a sedan unload four gunmen who were examining the prone and costumed body of Roger Smith. Roger was lying on his back, dead to the world. How bad was he hurt? Almost of its own accord, the green barrette in her hair slid forward to reveal a rectangular cavity in the girl's head that contained a powerful halogen lamp.

Oops. Big mistake. Now instead of looking down at Roger the men were looking up at Dorothy and Angel. "Shoot her!" a short tubby man dressed as a beatnik ordered. The men fired their pistols at the girls as they fled the metal bridge for the safety of the closest roof.

The sound of gunfire brought Roger around. Before he could wake up fully and find out how much pain he was in, he jumped to his feet, grabbed a gunman's shoulder and punched him in the jaw when he turned around.

"Ah!" the man cried as he tumbled across the hood of his car.

As Dorothy distracted the gunmen with her halogen lamp Roger punched other in the chin and threw him across the cab to join his friend.

A third pointed his gun at Roger but the costumed negotiator seized his wrist and disarmed him. The henchman struck at Roger who blocked before punching him in the face with a quick jab. As the man staggered back, Roger kicked him in the stomach to send him down.

"Yaaaaagh!"

A man's animal roar made Roger turn around to witness a man execute a flying somersault over a fence to land in the lot. The man wore a baldric and drew two exotic swords that the employees of Yoshifuda Yakamoto Industries would call 'katanas'. Roaring like an animal, the swordsman advanced while whirling his deadly weapons in front of him to create a lethal barrier of flashing metal.

Before he could get to Roger, Dorothy jumped down from the roof to land directly in front of him, causing a few chunks of asphalt to fly up from her impact point as her feet hit the pavement. Almost faster than the eye could follow she blocked the swordsman's blows with her forearms. Sparks flew as the deadly blades bit through her gloves and artificial skin as each strike emitted a cymbal-like clang. When the swordsman aimed low she blocked with her shin before delivering a headbutt that sent him staggering backwards.

Stunned, the swordsman shook his head to clear it before coming for Dorothy again. The little android responded by jumping into the air and kicking him in the chin, sending him tumbling head over heels before rolling to a stop.

The fat tubby beatnik was hiding behind a pile of trash holding a cleaver. Roger and Dorothy glared at him before he dropped his weapon and ran away.

Roger cracked a smile. "Good work, old chum. Let's find Angel."

On the other side of the building, Angel was gingerly letting herself down the fire escape. When she finished descending the final ladder she turned around and screamed before recognizing the costumed forms of Roger and Dorothy.

"Got my watch?" Roger asked as he extended his black gloved hand.

"You weigh more than a hundred and eight," Dorothy said to the blonde.

"Oh really?" Angel sneered as Roger used his watch to summon his car.

Back at the construction site, a long black box rose on a central jack as the armor folded into it to reveal a black Cadillac. It started its engine and drove away before the startled eyes of unbelieving pedestrians. It turned a corner and drove down an alley before Roger stepped out in front of it. "Stop," he muttered as he hit a stud on his watch.

Angel gasped as the Cadillac came to stop just inches from Roger.

Roger and Angel got in the car but Dorothy just stood outside. "What's the matter?" he asked the tardy android.

"I can't open the door," Dorothy replied. "My hands don't seem to work."

"What?" Roger got back out of the car.

"Oh. Dorothy!" Angel gasped guiltily as she exited the passenger seat. "Let me see," she added as she took Dorothy's hands.

Roger drew in a breath. Dorothy's forearms were cut with deep gashes that almost went halfway through. Her green gloves were in tatters, but so was her skin! Not only that but there was a slash on her shin where she had blocked a strike.

"Will I be able to play the piano again?" There was something poignantly heartbreaking about the girl's uncaring query.

"Of course Dorothy," Roger nodded as he hugged her. "We have your blueprints. We can build you new arms if we have to."

Soon the three of them were back in Roger's car heading back to the renovated bank tower that the negotiator called home. Dorothy was in the front passenger seat this time and Angel was in the back.

"Okay out with it," Roger growled as he navigated the nightmare that was Paradigm City's roadways. "Why is Beck after you?"

"I don't know," Angel sighed. Was that guilt in her voice?

"I'll bet you can guess," Roger grumbled.

Angel didn't respond to that.

When he stopped at a traffic light, Roger opened a panel on his dashboard to extract a microphone that was attached to the secret compartment by a curly telephone cord. "Norman, we're coming home. Prepare some sandwiches, a guest room, and Dorothy's repair bay." He groaned as the adrenaline from the evening wore off allowing him to actually _feel_ his wounds. "And the medical bay," he added in an exhausted tone.

"Oh dear, fun night out?" asked the gray monochromatic image of Norman Burg. "Not to worry, Master Roger. By the time you return, everything will be as you asked for."

Of course it would. Not only was Norman nothing if not efficient but he had plenty of time to make it happen. After everything that Paradigm City had been through the streets and freeways of the city were all blocked off for the construction crews. The entire city was just one giant maze of detours.

That gave Roger lots of time to feel just how much pain he was in. Before he got home he could feel every whump, bump, thump, and lump. He could detect every whap, tap, slap, and impact. His ribs were bruised, but thankfully not broken. So were his legs. And his arms. And his face. When he took off his costume he would probably look like a newspaper, black and blue all over.

When the black Cadillac drove into the spacious hangar that contained the black megadeus, Norman couldn't resist smirking as the bedraggled costumed trio dragged themselves out of the car. "Goodness! Master Roger? You left with one girl and came back with two. And require medical assistance as well. Will this be an evening to brag about or will it be one to take to your grave?"

"Considering that we survived everything Beck threw at us, probably a little of both," Roger grunted as he pulled the cape and cowl off to reveal that he now had two black eyes. From a distance it looked like he was wearing a domino mask.

"How bad are you hurt sir?" All levity had left Norman's voice when Roger started limping for the elevator.

"I don't know," he sighed as his butler rushed to his side. "I feel as if I've been through a giant egg beater."

"Norman, I can start Dorothy's repairs while you take care of Roger," Angel offered.

Both Roger and Norman were surprised. "Really Miss Angel?" Norman asked. "I had no idea you were so well versed with robotics."

"It's something I picked up while I've been lying low," she blushed.

"Are you comfortable with having another doctor Miss Dorothy?" the butler asked.

"Take care of Roger Norman," the android said. "His injuries are much worse than mine, and my repairs will take more time. Angel can start the preliminary repairs. I don't mind."

"Well if you're sure," Roger said. "Ungh…" he held his side. "Dorothy's right. Better take care of me first Norman."

"Yes sir," the elderly butler nodded as he put a supporting arm around him.

Later, up in Norman's workshop, Angel removed the skin and the ceramic and metal shell from Dorothy's forearm to repair the mechanisms that controlled her hand. "You _would_ have to get something complicated damaged," the blonde grumbled as Dorothy extended her arm over the table. "The damage to your leg will be easy, but you managed to get your arms chopped up real good."

"What are you going to tell Roger?" Dorothy asked her.

"I'm sorry I got you into this," Angel sighed.

"No, I mean what are you going to say to him when he asks you why Beck is after you?" the android clarified.

"Oh. That," she murmured. "To tell you the truth I don't know."

"Why is Beck after you?"

"He, he found the storehouse of lost Memories," Angel sighed. "My control room to be precise. I don't know how much he learned but it's more than enough to make him dangerous."

"So why is he after you?"

"I don't know," she muttered. "I guess it's because he wants to be the only one with that kind of knowledge. When Alex Rosewater found out more than he was supposed to he did the same thing."

"Is it because he needs you to access more information?"

Angel's pale face became as white as Dorothy's. For a moment it looked like she might faint. That was a problem. Dorothy's hands didn't work and it would be hard to catch her.

"I see," the little android said. "Beck now knows that you're the key."

"Yeah," the blonde gulped weakly.

"He will stop at nothing to place you in his power," Dorothy said. "I should know."

"I can't believe this is _Beck_ we're talking about!" Angel whined. "Normally he doesn't have enough common sense to be this dangerous!"

"He's apparently more talented then we gave him credit for," Dorothy agreed. "What are you going to do?"

"I… haven't decided yet," Angel muttered.

"How much are you going to tell Roger?" the redhead asked. "You're going to have to tell him _something_."

"Will you knock it off with the questions already?" the blonde bombshell hollered. "Honestly you're like a machine!"

Dorothy's eyes narrowed.

"Sorry about that," Angel blushed.

"Don't worry about it," the girl said lifelessly. "What kind of damage can he do if he gets ahold of the Memories?"

"Oh wow," Angel groaned as she shook her head. "What _couldn't_ he do? Erase everyone's Memories, restore them, activate dormant megadeuses, hack every computer in the city, there would be no stopping him!"

"Just like there's no stopping _you_, is there?"

"Hey!" the blonde protested. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You already possess the information that he covets," Dorothy pointed out. "You could do any of the things that he could do. Why haven't you done it?"

"Ugh!" Angel groaned. "The last time I did that I caused hallucinations all over the city! I'm lucky I didn't launch the missiles! Are you crazy?"

"I was just asking," Dorothy said. "Anyway what do you intend to do? I need to know if I'm going to help you."

"Thanks, Dorothy," the blonde sighed gratefully. "So far I'm just playing it by ear."

"No offense but that doesn't sound like much of a plan," Dorothy said. "What are you going to tell Roger? He's going to need some explanation. Or are you going to leave again?"

"Beck is bound to be watching all the exits," Angel sighed. "Including the underground ones." She put her hand under her chin and made a 'hum' sound. "I hope I can think of a plan by morning."

* * *

The next morning Jason Beck was in Lester Young's office. "Okay Mister Young, what's all this about? I've got things I have to do and I've don't got all day."

"Phooey. You're being paid for your time aren't you?" Young snorted. "You're being paid by the hour as a consultant."

"Okay, what was you needed consulting about?" Beck grimaced.

"Yesterday when you barged into my meeting and gave that ridiculous performance, you made some outrageous claims," Young wagged his finger at the wily criminal. "I would like you to clarify those statements if you can."

"Oh yeah," Beck nodded. "Where was I? I was saying that Alex Rosewater eliminated every one of you who had stones…"

"Before that, you jackanapes!" Young barked. "Tell me about the domineus!"

"What about him?" Beck shrugged. "You know where he lives."

"No, you were saying that a true megadeus can't be operated by just any pilot," Young leaned back in his chair. "It requires an individual known as the _domineus_. Tell me, what is a 'domineus' and what makes him so special?"

Beck was looking at his watch. "Hm?" he looked up at Young in surprise. "Oh that! Well, a long time ago, when everybody could remember who they were, pilots were bonded with their megadeuses. It was the only way to let the pilot operate 'em as extensions of their own bodies without turning all of the pilots into cyborgs."

"And how would a machine 'bond' with a human?" Young asked.

"Well, if it was an android designed to look like a teenage girl, you'd have to activate her 'special' subroutines, if you know what I'm sayin'," Beck winked. "They made hooker-bots back in the olden days, did ya know? Seriously."

"Please, Mister Beck, you are not a letch or a jackass, so don't act like one," Young scolded. "How does a pilot bond with a megadeus?"

"Oh _that_," Beck smiled guiltily. "Well, in the olden days if the pilot passed the physical and psychological requirements to be a domineus, the megadeus would inject these itty-bitty robots into their bloodstream and their nervous system. It would create a telepathic link between the domineus and the megadeus, and in the meantime the little robots would improve the reflexes, increase muscle tone, and repair all physical damage the pilot sustains. With enough raw material, i.e. food and oxygen, any injury or illness the domineus suffered would eventually be completely healed. They were supposed to be unkillable."

"And what happened to them?"

"They were killed," Beck snickered. "In order to heal the damage, the domineus has to survive his wound in the first place. It was one _hell_ of a war."

"What about the megadeus?"

"The megadeus' main computer would receive a copy of the pilot's subconscious mind," Beck explained. "That way the megadeus would know what the pilot wanted it to do, allowing much finer control than mere controls would allow. In addition, a copy of the pilot's brainwaves would be useful if the pilot went insane and needed his brain reset."

"Couldn't he be replaced?" Young asked. "Couldn't any man become a domineus?"

"You would think, but each megadeus will only accept its original pilot," Beck shrugged. "They won't take anybody else. Gordon Rosewater tried to implant the Memories of the original pilots that he stored in the skulls of Paradigm City's first senators into a bunch of children so they could grow up to become domineuses, but it didn't always take. Besides, Alex found out about it and had every one he could find killed. There was only room for _one_ domineus in his little world."

"That's remarkable," Young said. "Is anything you said true?"

"Beats me, but it fits everything that I've found out so far," Beck shrugged. "If you don't believe me, why don't you ask Roger Smith? I'm sure _he'd_ know."

"Perhaps I will," Young narrowed his piggy eyes. "In the meantime, why do you believe that it would be in my best interest to eliminate the domineus? That would leave Paradigm City helpless wouldn't it?"

"Not if you built your own megadeuses," Beck shrugged. "I could help out there."

"Yes, I'm sure Mister Soldono benefited greatly from your 'help,'" Young nodded skeptically. "Mister Beck, I am neither a dunce nor a witling and I would appreciate it if you didn't treat me like one. Unlike you, I only resort to skullduggery when it's my only option. Before I undertake such a drastic measure, I think I should try a more reasonable approach."

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: The Calling_


	8. The Calling

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Eight: The Calling_

When Roger woke up it was after twelve. Dorothy never let him sleep in this late! Had something happened to her? That was when memories of last night came back to him. "Dorothy!" he cried as he got out of bed. He burst out of his room and staggered into the parlor like a man possessed. "Dorothy! Are you alright? Dorothy! Answer me!"

His voice died when he heard the click of a pistol's hammer being cocked back. Someone was coming up the stairs! He took off the shirt of his pajamas and rolled it into a cord and tiptoed over to the wall where he could peek down at whoever was coming up the stairs. Whoever was coming up would be facing the wrong way and maybe Roger could use his pajama top as a garrote…

"Angel?" he relaxed when he saw the tall curvaceous blonde tiptoeing up the stairs holding a large revolver before her. The black babydoll negligée she wore left little to the imagination, and the sight of her sent Roger's imagination into overdrive.

"Roger?" she lowered her gun and looked up at him before continuing up the stairs. "So tell me lover boy. Why were you shouting Dorothy's name? Were you having erotic dreams about her or something?"

"Why do you persist in these ridiculous insinuations?" Roger moaned. "I wasn't having an erotic dream about Dorothy! What could make you think such a thing?"

"You were shouting her name," Angel winked as she passed him. "When a man in his pajamas shout's a girl's name like that, it usually means something."

"Dorothy usually gets me up at this time," he muttered. "I was afraid something happened to her."

"Do you usually assume that something's happened to her when she doesn't get you up?" Angel asked as she set the pistol down a coffee table. When she bent over Roger pinched his nose to prevent a nosebleed, but when the bodacious blonde turned to face him he managed to act casual.

"Sure," he shrugged. "This is Dorothy Wayneright we're talking about. That girl could write a book on being abducted."

The blonde's eyes widened as they drank the sight of Roger in. "Wow. Roger. I've never seen so much of you. Even with all those bruises, you're really built!" Her look of awe became a clever smile as she sauntered playfully over to him. "And your hair. You look really hot when it's all messy like that. If you ever lost your comb I think you might be able to pull that look off." She placed her hands on his chest. "Wow! Talk about a muscular chest! You've been hiding a lot, haven't you?"

Roger drew in a breath before rewarding her with a clever smile of his own. "Come on Angel, that's not right," he purred. "How would you like it if I put my hands on _your_ chest?"

"What makes you think I'd mind?" she smiled as she leaned into him.

"Hey, I haven't brushed my teeth yet," he protested weakly, but he was still smiling. "It could get pretty nasty."

"I haven't brushed my teeth either," she grinned back. She put her face too close to his for comfort, but for some reason he was feeling quite comfortable. "What are you afraid of? Something… nasty?"

"I'm not afraid of anything, I just want to make a good impression," he broke into an embarrassed grin as they put their arms around each other.

"I want to make a good impression too," she said. "Why else do you think I'm wearing _this_ for? You dirty boy. Do you make _Dorothy_ wear this?"

"It um… belongs to my maiden aunt," Roger lied quickly. "Sometimes, after a megadeus has wrecked her neighborhood she stays here with me."

"Your maiden aunt huh?" Angel smirked, guessing that the nightie was meant for the female paramours that Roger had been known to entertain before Dorothy moved in. "She must be quite a woman."

"Aunt Agatha is a woman of… peculiar taste," he smiled diplomatically.

"She kept her figure too," Angel teased.

"Ahem," Dorothy's soft voice coughed. They turned to see the little android at the top of the stairs. "Norman sent me to tell you that your breakfast is ready. I was going to wake you." Dorothy's violet eyes glanced at Roger's waist. "But I see that Angel has gotten you up."

"Dorothy!" Roger blushed as he and Angel separated. "Er uh, it's not what it looks like! We were…"

"I was just inspecting his injuries!" Angel stammered. "It's the least I can do after you two risked your lives for me!"

Dorothy looked at the revolver on the coffee table. "Will you be needing that pistol Norman lent you?"

Angel darted across the room and snatched it up. "Yes, I'd like to keep it if he doesn't mind," she replied awkwardly. At that moment the idea of Dorothy picking up a firearm made her uneasy. "Well, I better go put on a robe!" she said as she skittered around Dorothy and went down the stairs.

Without a word, the little android followed her.

"When are you going to tell him?" the leggy blonde asked when they reached the guest room Angel had spent the night in.

"Tell him what?" replied the little redhead. "I don't know what you mean."

"Tell him that you're really a woman," Angel clarified. "Tell him that you're fully functional. You know, that you're not just a mannequin." She paused, slightly unnerved by the girl's blank look, before striking a melodramatic pose. "That romance is physically possible with you. You know, when are you going to tell him that you're capable of sharing wedded bliss with the one you love?"

"I'm not a real woman; I'm an android," Dorothy corrected. "I'm a real person, but I'm not a real woman. At the most I'm a girl, and that's all I can be. Any 'wedded bliss' with me would be a lie, for I can't give Roger any children. I'm trapped being a child myself."

"I can't believe that an android of all people can be so sexist!" Angel exclaimed. "Honestly, is that what you think the perfect woman is? A baby factory?"

"I'm not going to ask Roger to live a lie," Dorothy told her. "If he decides that he can be happy with an android, I'll support his choice, but I can't encourage him to make a choice like that."

"You act like having a baby is the end all and be all of womanhood!" Angel spat.

"It's easy for you to go against convention," Dorothy said. "Your femininity is unquestioned. Since you have mastered the rules of being a woman, you have the option to break them. As an android, I don't have that option. If my thoughts and actions aren't gender specific, I run the risk of losing my identity as a girl."

"Are you saying that you're just play acting?"

"No, I'm saying that I'm incomplete."

"Nothing is worse than an android hatin' android," Angel sighed. "In what way are you incomplete?"

"I can't be the real Dorothy Wayneright for him," the little redhead explained.

"And what makes you think that he would even like the real Dorothy Wayneright?" Angel demanded.

"The Memories that dead girl left me," the girl said with a hint of finality. "I'm sure that he and the original Dorothy Wayneright would get along splendidly. But I'm not the real Dorothy Wayneright. I'm an android. I can't make little Rogers for him. I'm not real. My hair is fake, my chest is fake, my entire body is fake. My every thought and action is at best an approximation of a real woman. How could Roger really be happy with an incomplete girl like me?"

"You idiot, he's _already_ happy with you!" Angel snapped. "You're just too down on yourself to see it!"

"If he's happy, then there's no point changing the status quo," the girl stated flatly.

"My God," Angel shook her head in contempt. "Was the original Dorothy such a hopeless martyr?"

"I don't know," Dorothy responded without blinking. "Was she?"

Angel closed the distance between, but it was impossible to intimidate an android by violating personal space. "Look here, Dorothy," Angel scowled as she put her nose mere inches from the girl's. "I want what's best for Roger too, but if you keep playing coy I may take Roger's advice and decide to live as a human being."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean in Roger's confused state he might not know what he wants, and might change his mind about which girl he's chosen," Angel explained coldly. "An android might have the patience and discipline to be _really_ pigheaded, but _I'm_ only human."

"I'll keep that in mind," Dorothy said.

* * *

Breakfast was awkward. Normally Roger wouldn't mind having another guest at the table, particularly such a beautiful one as Angel but the tension in the room was undeniable.

"I apologize for the lateness of the meal," Norman said as he set plates of scrambled eggs before Roger and Angel. "I spent the morning repairing Miss Dorothy and lost track of time. Still, no harm done I suppose. After last night's adventure I suppose that the two of you needed your sleep."

"Yeah, I guess we earned it," Roger nodded. "So Angel, if it's not too much to ask: Why is Beck after you? He usually doesn't do anything unless there's profit involved. Or revenge. Any idea which one it is?"

Angel moaned and glanced at Dorothy for help. Dorothy set down her teacup and looked at Angel. Without warning, Dorothy's mouth moved rapidly as a strange electronic noise came out of her. It was as if she was speaking gibberish at an accelerated speed.

"Dorothy?" Angel blinked. "What's wrong? Is everything all right sweetie?"

"Dorothy!" Roger rose from his chair. "This has happened before! She's…"

"Dorothy is summoning a megadeus!" Angel gasped.

Dorothy clasped her hands in front of her mouth and gasped in horror. The look of terror in her eyes was frighteningly genuine. So much for the perception that Dorothy didn't have emotions!

"Norman, we've got to get her out of here!" Roger declared. "We've got to move her and Big O to a neutral location where we won't put any lives in danger!"

"We can go to JFK Mark!" Angel declared. "The repairs to the freeway are almost complete; we should be able to get there in time!"

"No," Roger decided. "Stay here. If you get into Big O's control room, you'll be bounced to death since there's no place for you to strap in."

"Right," she nodded.

"Very well, Master Roger," said Norman. "We better get you dressed. Dorothy, make some sandwiches and fill a thermos. It appears that Master Roger will have to eat on the road."

"Yes Norman," Dorothy said as she rose from her chair.

* * *

Soon the black Cadillac was zooming out of the garage at the bottom of the white tower that used to be a bank building and roaring down the street. As they sped away, Roger and Dorothy didn't notice a yellow and gray van with a radar dish parked on the curb across from Roger's home.

In the driver's seat was Bobo 'Dove' Jacobs who was recognizable with his greenish black hair, snow white skin and blood red lips. "It's goin' just as you said it would boss," he said in his effeminate high pitched voice as he held a CB microphone to his blood red lips. "Our broadcast made the android girl start sending out signals just as you said!"

"Good," Beck's voice said from a speaker in the dashboard. "When the megadeus leaves we can move in and grab her. Tell T-bone he can stop broadcasting."

"Roger that, boss," the skinny clown said before he set down the microphone. He opened a tiny window behind him that led into the back of the van. "Hey T-bone!" he called. "You can stop broadcasting now!"

In the back of the van a short tubby man dressed as a beatnik was sitting in front of a control console and a bank of broadcasting equipment. "Right," he said as he shut the equipment off. "Now the negotiator should be out of our hair."

* * *

The black Cadillac roared down the road and darted through traffic as quickly as safety would allow. It cut off a pink sedan and zoomed around a semi-truck as it crossed a bridge that went over the Hudson River. In the driver's seat, Roger drove like a man possessed. Dorothy sat silently in the passenger seat next to him.

"That sure is an irritating habit you got Dorothy," Roger said as he threaded the powerful car through traffic. "We've got to find out why you do that."

"Perhaps I should ask her," Dorothy said without moving.

"Ask her?" Roger frowned. "Ask who? Angel?"

Dorothy didn't answer.

Roger grunted in frustration. "Call Norman and let him know we're almost there. He can send over Big O any time now."

"Very well," the girl said as she pulled a microphone out of a compartment between the seats and pressed a button. The grey screen on the dashboard displayed the white capital letters 'CALL OUT'. "Norman, we're ready. Send Big O over now."

"Very good Miss Dorothy," the old man replied as he stood before a transmitter and a small television screen back at the Smith mansion. "I shall send it to your location now." Norman flicked several switches and pushed a large button. He looked out across the catwalk to see a giant robot towering over fifty feet tall. The head of Big O was an impassive face that was dwarfed by the megadeus' barrel shaped body. Two vaguely humanoid legs supported its bulk. The enormous arms of the megadeus were in reality massive piledrivers with huge mechanical hands instead of chisels. When Norman activated the controls, the gunmetal black goliath was lowered into the sublevels on a massive rack where it entered a gigantic four-locomotive vehicle known as the 'prairie dog' to transport it the black clad negotiator and his android ward.

* * *

Minutes later an ebony giant stood amidst the ruins of ships and airplanes that was JFK Mark. The long black car drove right between Big O's feet before it braked and then backed up to enter a garage that was at the bottom of the black megadeus' right foot. Soon Roger and Dorothy were in the control room.

Roger sat in the cockpit and put his feet into the pedals. He crossed his arms as two curved arms ending in joysticks closed to encircle his chair as Dorothy to stood nearby and peered out the rose-colored semitransparent wall in front of them. At Roger's feet were three circular monitors. The larger center screen displayed a message: "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD YE NOT GUILTY".

"Okay Dorothy," Roger winked. "Let's test out that brace we installed for you."

Dorothy nodded and walked back behind his chair. She leaned against a depression in the back wall and six sets of dull metal pincers closed like vices against her waist, neck, shins, and forearms. Once she was restrained, the pincers slid up the back wall to lift her off the floor just enough so she could look out the rose colored semitransparent wall before them and peer over Roger's head to view the screens and gauges in front of him. "It's working perfectly Roger. I'm very secure."

"Good," he smiled and nodded. Such restraints were for Roger's safety as well as Dorothy's. Dorothy might be damaged if Big O was knocked over, but if a two hundred and eighty pound android fell on top of Roger he might be killed. He looked down at a screen and saw a blip on the radar. "And here it comes. Okay, Big O. Showtime. Time for action."

Marching around a ruined ship lumbered a headless humanoid six story tall robot. Instead of a face there was a turret holding some kind of double barreled cannon. The robot had a squat barrel shaped body, thick legs, huge feet and bulbous forearms. The peeling paint covering it was dark blue with black highlights.

"This one doesn't look so tough," Roger said confidently. "We'll let it get closer and then we'll… huh?"

Hatches in the blue megadeus' shoulders opened to reveal multiple warheads.

"What the?" Roger gasped. "That thing's got enough ordinance to arm a regiment!"

The rockets roared out of the opposing megadeus in a flurry of fire and smoke.

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Siege _


	9. Siege

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Nine: Siege_

In a cockpit of some kind Beck produced a remote control and pulled a long antenna out from it. "Ready?" Beck asked the Dove and T-Bone who were seated behind him. "And here. We. Go!"

In a subbasement beneath Roger's home, an explosive charge blew an armored metal door open. Whatever was hidden in the subway system beneath the Smith mansion emitted a red glow from a triangular light that was at eye level.

* * *

"Flares!" Roger hit a button to the left of the joysticks and a swarm of shooting stars whizzed out of Big O's chest. Roger pulled on the joysticks causing the black megadeus to block with its arm shields as the ordinance from the blue one came raining down on it. Big O vanished in a billowing black cloud.

* * *

Back in the white tower that was the Smith Mansion, Norman frowned in front of a bank of control consoles and multiple television screens. "Oh dear, we have a security breach in the basement." He pressed a button and the monochromatic images of men in diving suits appeared in a television screen. "It appears that we have unwelcome company. What a bother."

"Beck!" she gasped as she stared at the television screen. "Then Dorothy… the megadeus! It was just a trick to get Roger out of the building!"

"What a nuisance," Norman muttered as he walked over to a brick fireplace and pushed in one of the bricks. The wall to the left of the fireplace sank in and slid to reveal a room filled with firearms. "Choose your weapons Miss Angel."

She smiled grimly as she surveyed the collection before her. "I like your style."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the ruined airport known as JFK mark, the Big O ran out of a fiery cloud of billowing smoke with its arm shields facing its foe. In the crimson cockpit in the heart of the black megadeus Roger Smith pumped the pedals as hard as he could. "Big O!" he shouted as he held on to the joysticks for dear life. "Action!"

From her perch on the back wall of the control room, Dorothy looked like a carved figurehead on a pirate ship. "Roger, how can you see?"

"Whoa!" Roger halted the black megadeus' forward movement to have it crouch as missiles impacted Big O's feet. Fortunately Big O had plenty of armor on its lower legs but Roger instinctively crouched so the arm shields could protect the entire body. What he couldn't see was that cavities in the legs of the blue megadeus firing on them had opened to reveal more missiles. "This guy's armed to the teeth." He peeked the Big O's head over the arm shields to fire lavender beams from its eyes. The gun turret that served as the blue megadeus' head exploded but this didn't seem to bother hostile robot in the slightest.

"Roger," Dorothy's voice indicated that she wanted to tell him about something, not that she was in distress.

"I see it, Dorothy," he frowned as he surveyed the damage reports on his left screen. Both the arm shields and the lower legs registered damage, but so far it was nothing Big O couldn't take. "Time to go on the offensive." His gloved hand hit a button on his left.

* * *

Back in the Smith mansion Norman hauled what appeared to be an M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun over his shoulder as they entered the top of the empty and cavernous hangar. "I believe it's time to go on the offensive, my dear."

"Roger," she nodded as she followed him in her pink catsuit. She also wore the system of straps and baldrics known as 'webgear' where she had strapped a number of different machine pistols.

"Master Roger?" Norman glanced around. "Where?"

"No, I mean 'roger that,' as in 'I hear you, '" she corrected. "Understand?"

"Oh. Copy that then," he said awkwardly as they went out onto the catwalk to get a view of anyone climbing the stairs.

* * *

The blue megadeus continued to fire away at the Big O, but in doing so had opened hatches in its armor to allow the missile launchers to fire. When it opened a hatch on its leg Roger hit a button on the console to his right. A spike fired out of the black megadeus' right hip and trailed a massive chain behind it. The huge arrow shaped spike set off an unfired missile causing a chain reaction within the blue megadeus' leg. A shower of metal flew out of the ancient robot's leg in a shaped charge to harmlessly bounce off Big O's arm shields.

Somehow the headless blue megadeus remained standing despite the damage to its left leg, but now it had stopped walking, and was forced to stand in place merely to remain upright. It had closed its hatches as well. Any advantage it held in either firepower or maneuverability was lost. "Looks like the tables have turned," Roger smirked as he fired a spike out of Big O's left hip. Like the first one, this spike also trailed a massive chain behind it. The blue megadeus shuddered as the spike impaled its chest.

"Ha!" Roger pulled on the joystick causing Big O to seize the chain and pull the blue megadeus forward. He worked the pedals making Big O run forward so it could punch the blue megadeus. To its credit, the blue megadeus punched back with massive metal fists of its own. "This one has some fight in him," Roger muttered.

* * *

Angel's breath caught in her throat when she followed Norman into the large vertical hanger that was hidden in the white tower that Roger called home. Without Big O, the cavernous chamber looked especially large and especially _high_. Steeling her nerves, she reminded herself that she wasn't afraid of heights and followed Norman while carrying two ammunition boxes. They had gone down two flights of steps when Norman stopped.

"There they are," the old man said.

Angel looked down and spotted what appeared to be men in golden body armor coming up the stairs. "What are they wearing?" she asked as she and Norman set up the machine gun. "No wait! Those aren't people! They're some kind of robots!"

The robots marching up the stairs resembled men in golden rubber suits, but the exposed tubing and circuitry made the invaders' mechanical nature obvious. Their heads were composed of bulky diving helmets bolted to the main body. The chests had a flat rectangular metal box in front with a large hatch, presumably to allow maintenance or programming. Their hands only had three fingers each: A thumb, an index finger and a third thicker finger to assist in grasping. And they were grasping Thompson submachine guns.

"I'll take it from here Miss Angel," Norman announced as he gripped the handles of the 'Ma-deuce' and opened fire. "See to it that they don't flank us!"

"Got it!" Angel said as she crouched and pulled a pair of Mauser C96 "broom handle" machine pistols from two of the holsters strapped to her body. She pried her eyes off the robots Norman was turning into scrap metal and scanned the catwalk and doorways behind them for threats.

* * *

In the meantime a yellow dirigible was heading to the rooftop patio of the white skyscraper that Roger called home. In an open entrance hatch Beck was wearing a safety harness and flight goggles over his double-breasted suit. "Okay fellas, we're nearly there!" he said as he clipped a safety line to his harness. "Hold her steady now!" he said as the dirigible floated over Roger's home. "I'm goin' down! Whee!"

With that he jumped and rappelled down to the slender cable until he touched down on the roof. "Woo!" Beck shrieked as he unbuckled his harness and ran for the door. "Let's hope he never locks _this_ door! Aha! I knew it!" he crowed as he went through the door to enter Roger's large parlor. He walked around the piano and went to a painting on an interior wall.

It turned out that the painting was on a hinge revealing a hidden wall safe. "I hope you don't think that an antique like this is going to stop me Roger," Beck smirked. "I should be through this in less than two minutes!"

* * *

Four floors below, Angel and Norman were putting up a spirited defense. The robots were using submachine guns because they didn't require programming for careful aiming. Angel was using machine pistols because they could really throw out the lead and accuracy wasn't important when firing into a group anyway. Norman was using the M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun that could cut the robots in half and lay down such a spread of fire he became an impenetrable wall. The net result was a cacophony of noise that made it impossible to hear anything, even Jason Beck laughing like a hyena only a few floors above.

* * *

"Whoa!" Roger yelped as Big O was knocked backwards from a blow from the blue megadeus' oversized metal fist. "That thing is aiming right for the cockpit!" he announced as he used Big O's massive hands to seize the opposing robot's fists. "Sorry my friend, but you don't have a leg to stand on," he quipped as the black megadeus pushed the blue one back. "I don't know where you came from, but if it's Dorothy you want, we just don't see eye to eye!"

Purplish white beams came out of Big O's eyes to rake the blue robot's hull. Roger leveraged the blue robot in order to fire the eyebeams towards the joint of the enemy's left shoulder. Smoke and small explosions erupted from the armpit of the blue robot before its left arm was useless.

"You fight a good fight, but it's the end of the line!" Roger crowed as he active the pile driver in Big O's right arm to send a gunmetal black fist through the center of the blue robot. Smoke, fire and metal debris erupted out the back before the blue robot fell. "Well that settles that," Roger sighed. "I guess we can go home now Dorothy."

"Roger, you're getting a call from Norman," Dorothy said from her perch on the back wall of the control room.

"Norman? What does he want?" Roger asked himself as he responded to the call.

The center circular screen before him displayed a wine colored monochromatic image of Angel. "Roger? Roger are you there?"

"Angel!" Roger gasped. "What's going on? Where's Norman?"

"He's manning the machine gun, shooting the robots that are invading your house," Angel replied. "The timing is just too good. If I didn't know better, I'd say that Dorothy summoning a megadeus is just a distraction."

"A distraction?" Roger frowned. "Beck! Nobody alive knows how Dorothy works better than he does! This was just to get me out of the house!"

* * *

In the meantime back in the parlor on the top floor, Beck took something out of Roger's safe and put it into a large sack. "It was here!" he cheered. "It was here the whole time! I can't believe how easy this was! Now to get out here before anybody even knows I was here!" He ran out onto the rooftop patio and shouted into a walkie-talkie. "Okay! I've got it! Lower the ladder and pick me up!"

"Got it, boss!" 'Dove' Jacobs chirped from up in the dirigible. He threw down a rope ladder that unspooled as it fell…

…right on Beck. "Ouch!" Beck cried as the end of the rope ladder knocked him down. "You morons!" he shouted into his walkie-talkie.

"Tell him to get up here!" 'T-bone' Torelli groaned as he fought the controls in the cockpit. "The wind's pickin' up, and I can't keep this thing still!"

In the meantime, Beck was continuing to yell into his walkie-talkie and didn't notice that the rope ladder was drifting away. "What are ya tryin' t' do? Take my head off! I'm lucky I wasn't killed you stupid…"

"Boss!" Dove chirped into a walkie-talkie of his own. "Get to the ladder! The wind is taking us away!"

"What?" Beck looked up from his radio to see the rope ladder go over the wall that separated Roger's rooftop patio from a lethal drop to the street below! "Nooo!" he screamed as he ran pell-mell to catch up with it. Heedless of the danger, he leaped over the edge and caught it with one hand. The other hand he used to hold the bag. "Woo-who!" he shrieked in triumph. "I made it, and I still have the bag!"

At that moment, he hit the side of a building and was dragged up the face of it.

"Ah!" Dove screamed like a girl. "T-bone, get us some altitude!"

"Got it," T-bone grunted as he forced the yellow dirigible to ascend. When it was high enough, both crooks used a winch to pull up the rope ladder and their battered and bruised leader.

"Are you all right, boss?" Dove asked in his high piping voice after they pulled Beck to safety.

"S-still got the bag," Beck stammered with a painful grimace. "Uh," he groaned as he passed out, still clutching both the bag and the end of the rope ladder.

"Let's shut the door so he doesn't fall out when he comes to," T-bone suggested.

* * *

When Roger got home he was surprised to find the former bank building in one piece. The last time his home was attacked by Beck's robots the place was totaled.

"Norman! Angel!" he called as he and Dorothy jumped out of the control room of Big O to the safety of the catwalk. "What happened?"

"The most peculiar thing sir," Norman reported. "The subbasement hatch to the underground rail systems has been breached by a group of substandard robots that tried to invade the mansion. We managed to repel them and have their remains to study."

"They didn't get beyond the hangar," Angel added. "The marched right up the stairwell and we set up a machine gun and mowed them down."

"If this is the work of Mister Beck I must say he's slipping," Norman commented. "These robots were absolute pushovers compared to the ones that invaded the mansion when Big Fau was attacking the city."

"Maybe without the Paradigm Group backing him, Beck doesn't have the money to make robots expensive enough to get the job done," Roger mused as he looked down the hangar stairs to see the M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun set up on the landing below, "or maybe we just don't know his endgame. Norman, you and Dorothy seal the subbasement hatch. Wield it shut if you have to. Angel, if you're up to it, I'd like your help cleaning up the mess. I want to get the remains of those robots into the robotics lab so we can see what makes them tick. It's possible that they still hold a few surprises."

"After we seal the subbasement we should work on strengthening the security down there," Norman said. "It's possible that was just a scouting party probing our defenses before the big push."

* * *

Later at Paradigm Headquarters, Lester Young had visitor. "Mister Beck, do you make it a habit to bypass my security?" he asked in irritation as he walked around the golden criminal to sit behind his massive oak desk.

"Funny you should ask, boss!" Beck smiled. "The answer is 'yes'."

Young snorted in contempt. "I was not aware that you were in my employ."

"Come on, just about everybody is at one time or another," Beck shrugged. "Besides. I got a line on someone you want. Angel."

Young's piggy eyes widened at that remark. "What do you know about the Angel?" he asked sternly.

"Only that she's the key to city and the custodian of the Repository of Lost Memories," the lanky criminal smirked. "You know, she's not bad on the eyes either. She's rather attractive for a beautiful girl with a great body."

"Where is she sir? Where?" Young demanded.

"She's probably on the move, but I think I know how to catch her," Beck purred as he went to a bar in the corner of Young's large luxurious office and poured himself a drink. "If you really want her I'll need you to build something for me. I'll help with the manual labor but I don't have the resources to put it together by myself. At least not within a reasonable time. I assume that you're in a hurry, right?"

"Mister Beck, do you persist in talking in riddles?" Young growled as he plopped his seventh of a ton behind his desk.

"Not at all, but you'll understand if I keep things kind of vague until we discuss price," Beck winked as he turned around to lean against the bar and stir his drink. "I mean, I wouldn't want to tell you my idea and have you cut me out of the loop, would I?"

"Speak sir," Young ordered curtly.

"Okay, I was thinking that I could do something bigger than all these high risk illegal jobs…"

"_Sit down_ Mister Beck," Young snarled before his voice returned to normal. "I prefer eyes at a level."

"Oh, gotcha," Beck smiled sheepishly as he took his drink and sat down in an easy chair that was placed in front of Young's massive desk. "What I want is a chance to go legit. Become an honest businessman. Become white collar. What I want is stock in the company. An office would be nice too."

"Given your criminal record it would be wiser to place my John Thomas in the hands of a homicidal maniac with a pair of scissors," Young muttered dryly.

Beck burst out laughing at that remark. "That's a good one! You're a wild man under all that corporate respectability aren't you? But I'm serious. I want all of the Paradigm Company stock available. With so many stockholders killed, in prison, or facing the death penalty there must be some available. I want to make the big money. But if you aren't interested I guess we'll just have to leave the fate of humanity in the hands of woman who has a history with the Union." He emptied his drink with a noisy gulping sound and gave a loud satisfied groan. "Well take care Mister Young, if you change your mind I'll be in touch."

"Very well, what is it you want me to build?" Young asked dryly. "We'll discuss the actual number of shares once I see how much resources it's going to take to build your megadeus."

"Why Mister Young, how do you know it's a megadeus?"

"Given your history it could hardly be anything else could it?"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: Misdirection _


	10. Misdirection

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Ten: Misdirection_

Back at the white tower that was Roger's home, the negotiator, Angel, and Dorothy were in the robotics bay where the android girl received her repairs and maintenance. Norman had taken off his jacket and was crouched over a table where one of the diving suit style robots had been disassembled. "Fascinating," the old man muttered as he peered through a jeweler's lens.

"What? Is there some kind of booby trap?" Roger asked. "Are these things more advanced than we thought?"

"Actually Master Roger they are less advanced than we thought," Norman replied as he stood up and allowed the eyepiece to fall into his palm. "It's no wonder they were given submachine guns. Their targeting system is so primitive they would never hit anything with semiautomatics."

"Beck gets me and Big O out of here and then attacks the place with robots that can't get the job done so what's the point?" Roger asked as he scratched the side of his head. "There must be some reason why he did this. He may be an idiot, but at least he's a clever one. Norman, arrange for these robots to be hauled away as scrap the first chance you get. I don't want any bombs or hidden bugs in them to compromise us."

"A prudent course of action sir," the old man nodded.

"Speaking of prudent courses, I should probably be on my way," Angel sighed. "If Beck knows I'm here, none of us are safe."

"If this is the best Beck's got, he's no danger," Roger sneered.

"It's not just Beck, Roger," Angel shook her head. "The Union and the Paradigm Company are looking for me too. If Beck knows where I am it won't take long for someone else to figure it out. It's best that I keep moving."

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Roger asked in concern.

"Beck caught me napping but it's easier to defend _my_ hiding place than yours," Angel assured him. "The trick is getting there in one piece."

"Angel, I…" Roger paused as he looked into the blonde's beautiful eyes. "I'm afraid if you go, I'll never see you again."

Angel laughed bitterly but at least she was smiling. "That's probably for the best Roger. You said it yourself: I'm nothing but trouble."

"_Why_ is everybody after you?" Roger asked as his composure slipped.

"Roger if I told you that, everybody would be after you too," Angel shook her head sadly. "It's bad enough that the wrong people know you own the megadeus. Do you really want _another_ target painted on your back?"

"Sorry Angel, that's not good enough," Roger shook his head. "I need a reason. What is this about? Why are Lester Young, Jason Beck and who knows who else after you? After last night you owe me that much."

"Very well," Angel bowed her head. "Do you remember how I was last year when we first met? I was looking for lost Memories."

"Clearly," Roger smiled wryly. "That's one of the reasons it's so hard to trust you even today."

"First impressions are so important, aren't they?" she smiled sheepishly.

"Don't change the subject," Roger grunted. "You were saying?"

Angel's courage seemed to leave her as she looked down at the floor before looking back at Roger with a frightened expression. "Back at the beach… you… you asked where I got my information, remember?"

"Yes…" he narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"I… I found them," Angel gulped. "The Memories. Gordon Rosewater showed them to me. They're stored in a massive computer system called the Repository of Lost Memories. There's a control system that can erase or restore everyone's Memories. There's a surveillance system that monitors nearly everyone in the city."

"Am I supposed to believe any of this nonsense?" he frowned.

"I pray to God you don't," Angel stammered. "Because it's the truth, and the truth can destroy you."

"How can it destroy me?" Roger asked her.

"Please don't ask me anymore questions!" she sobbed into her hands. "Please! I've told you too much already! I've got to get away from here before I cause any more trouble!"

Roger let out a long sigh. "If I forbid you to go you'll sneak away the first chance you get won't you?"

"Probably," she muttered as she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

"All right, if you're going to sneak out anyway you might as well do it right," Roger shrugged. "Try to keep in touch, okay?"

"Will do."

* * *

In the meantime Jason Beck and Lester Young were looking at a set of blueprints that had been unrolled on the executive's desk.

"Do you really expect me to devote the resources and manpower to build such an extravagance?" Lester Young growled.

"Only if you want Angel Rosewater," Beck smiled.

"Rosewater?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" the canary colored criminal shrugged innocently. "One of the last things old Gordon did before he went totally senile was to adopt her into the family. I guess that makes her a stockholder in the company, huh?"

One of the telephones on the desk rang and Young impatiently snatched it up. "Yes, didn't I tell you that I wasn't to be disturbed? What was that? Well, that's a different matter entirely. Yes, most satisfactory. Intercept Smith's car and bring the woman to me immediately. Try not to harm Smith if you can manage it. I'll wait for your call." He hung up the phone with a hint of satisfaction.

"Good news?" Beck asked.

"Yes, I've had Roger Smith's residence under surveillance ever since last night," Young smirked. "My operatives inform me Mister Smith has just left his home in his car and there's a woman riding in the passenger seat. Her hair is honey blonde and she is described wearing a pink jacket. It would appear that I don't have to build you your toy after all, Mister Beck."

"What?" Beck squeaked.

* * *

Roger drove through the streets of Paradigm City past decrepit buildings and over cracked and bumpy streets. He glanced in the rearview mirror and squinted through his sunglasses. "Uh-oh," he said to his passenger. "Company. They didn't waste any time did they?"

"There are two more cars ahead of us," his passenger said as she pointed.

"I see them. Hang on," he grunted as he turned into a parking lot and drove out the other side. He opened a panel that was between their seats and flicked a switch. "Let's see how they like the oil slick."

Black liquid oozed out of a concealed nozzle in the back of the car. When two gray sedans roared out the parking lot to chase them they lost their traction and spun out of control.

"We'll use Houston Street and see if we can get to the freeway," Roger said as they turned another corner. "Houston is in pretty good shape. We should be able to make some speed going that way."

Two more black sedans managed to glide through the oil slick until enough traction to drive safely.

"Roger…"

"I see them!"

* * *

Back at Paradigm Headquarters Lester Young was talking on the phone. "I see. He was ready for you? Keep them in sight while I call out the reserves."

"Problem?" Beck smiled mockingly.

"Not now, Mister Beck," Young snarled. "Confound it," he muttered under his breath as he pushed a button on his telephone. "Hello! Yes, this is Lester Young. You are to intercept Roger Smith's car and detain his passenger. She is a known agent of the Union and has information that is vital to the safety of the city! You are not to harm her under any circumstances, is that clear?" He paused for a moment and then continued. "Yes, I would prefer that Mister Smith not be harmed, but I understand that circumstances might make that impossible. You may place him under arrest if you want to. I have no doubt that his evasive driving will more than justify it. I will decide whether or not to clear him of any charges that may spring up but I must insist that you capture that woman! That is not negotiable do you hear?

"Who are you talking to?" Beck asked.

"Not that it's any of your business Mister Beck, but I was talking to the Military Police," Young grunted. "Mister Smith may be able to elude a handful of agents but not even he can evade a citywide manhunt."

"Ooh!" Beck squealed childishly. "Someone's in _trouble_…"

* * *

Meanwhile at Military Police Headquarters a man who appeared to be wearing a motorcycle helmet and a gas mask entered the office of Colonel Dan Dastun, temporary head of the Military Police. What Colonel Dastun didn't know was that this was the same man who spoke to Angel in the Repository of Lost Memories six-hundred and sixty-six floors below the city.

"Don't androids know that you're supposed to knock Inspector R Fredrick O'Reilly?" the grizzled officer muttered.

"Indeed we do," the android inspector replied in a calm reasonable voice. "But I just got ahold of some information that might be important to you. The home office has just authorized the apprehension of Roger Smith and a female companion. They believe that the woman with Smith might be one of the last agents of the Union that haven't been apprehended yet."

"What?" Dastun rose from his desk.

"I had assumed that you'd want to supervise the manhunt yourself," O'Reilly said. "Roger Smith is a friend of yours and I assumed that you don't want him injured. Sometimes officers can get overzealous when carrying out their orders."

Dastun narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You also know that Roger is more likely to surrender to me than anybody else is that it? You have me just dancing on your strings don't you? It's bad enough that the home office sent you to spy on me and the department, but now you have me doing your dirty work! Since everything you're seeing and hearing is being recorded for the suits back at Paradigm Headquarters you can tell them to go screw themselves!"

"Does this mean that you aren't going to supervise the manhunt?" O'Reilly asked.

"No of course not," Dastun growled as he put his hat on over his bald scarred dome. "I'm going to be a good little soldier and follow orders just like they want me to and I'm going to see if I can get Roger out of this in one piece while I'm doing it! That doesn't mean I have to like it."

* * *

Soon Roger and his passenger were roaring down the street with both civilian and military police sedans hot on his trail. "These guys are hard to lose," the negotiator grunted. Roger hit a button on his dashboard as they approached an intersection and made a tight turn. A cable and grappling hook shot out to the left from under the Cadillac and wrapped itself around a girder of a building under construction, giving Roger the leverage he needed to complete the turn. The pursuing vehicles managed to match the turn and continue pursuit. One or two of them slid, but the drivers were able to get them under control and keep going. "Cop suspension, cop steering, cop brakes, cop power, those cars got it all," Roger muttered. "Including drivers that were actually trained to do this. I don't think we're going to…"

"Roger!" the girl in the passenger seat cried. "Look out!"

In front of them was a roadblock. Five police cars were blocking the street.

"Hang on," he grunted as he pushed a button on his dashboard marked 'Turbo'. The flames of four rockets underneath Roger's car were briefly seen as the Cadillac soared into the air and jumped the cars blocking the road as if it had driven up a ramp. Roger and his passenger rocked in their seats as the car landed on the other side and kept on going.

"Okay I think that's enough," Roger said as he turned a corner and drove onto the highway. "I'm going to have to straighten this out at Military Police Headquarters but I before that I can drop you off."

Roger picked up some more military police cars but that didn't bother him. Neither did the wooden barriers forcing traffic off the freeway or the construction and 'Bridge Out' signs that were placed before the large gap where the overpass was still under construction. Roger pressed the button marked 'Turbo' again and the black Cadillac soared over the gap to land safely on the other side. Fortunately, their pursuers had enough sense to slow down and stop before they tried to follow.

When the black Cadillac returned to Roger's neighborhood he was surprised to see an assortment of military police vehicles surrounding the former bank building he had made into his home.

Colonel Dastun was there with a megaphone. "Roger Smith!" he shouted. "Come out of the vehicle with your hands up! And bring the girl!"

Roger grunted as a large vehicle bearing a howitzer pulled up in back of them, blocking Roger and his passenger into a one block section of the street. "Looks like they got us," he sighed. "Come on, let's see what they want."

"Come on, Roger, don't be stupid!" Dastun shouted through the bullhorn. "If you be a good boy your lawyer should have you out in no time!"

"Colonel, they're coming out," R Fredrick O'Reilly informed him.

When Roger and the woman got out Dastun's men pointed their rifles at them.

"That shouldn't be necessary men," Dastun said as he handed his megaphone to O'Reilly and strode purposefully in Roger's direction.

"How long am I going to have to keep my hands up?" Roger smirked when Dastun got up to him.

"Just until I'm sure that none of my men will shoot you smart guy," Dastun snarled. "You really put your foot in it this time Roger! I'll do what I can for you but I don't see how I'm going to help Angel." He turned and looked at the woman in the pink jacket standing on the other side of the car. "Huh? R Dorothy? Why is she wearing a pink jacket and a wig?"

"It's not _my_ idea to always wear black," the android girl said. "Roger's fashion sense is very tacky. Can I help it if I want to try something different?"

"Is there a law against wearing a blonde wig Dastun?" Roger smirked.

"What the?" Dastun gasped before he started laughing. "You rascal! This is the craziest stunt you've pulled yet! This is just like that witness we had to protect ten years ago!"

"Roger, in light of recent events, I do _not_ think that blondes have more fun," the android girl said as she removed the blonde wig from her head. "I will have be content to remain a redhead."

* * *

Meanwhile on the other side of town, an old man on a motorcycle let his lovely passenger out of the sidecar. "Have a safe journey Miss Angel," the one eyed valet smiled.

"You too Norman," Angel grinned before she drew the hood of her black cape over her head. "Take care of Roger for me.

* * *

Back at Lester Young's office the portly executive received a phone call. "Yes Colonel Dastun this is Lester Young," he said. "You have them? Excellent. What? Yes, I want the woman known as 'Angel'. What? No I don't want Dorothy Wayneright." Suddenly his voice when from smug to frustrated. "You mean to say that you've been chasing a decoy!" he roared. "No it's not acceptable at all blast it!" He slammed down the phone. "Confound it!"

"Gee that's too bad Mister Young," Beck smiled lazily. "I guess we'll have to do things _my_ way."

"So it would seem Mister Beck," Young muttered.

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: What You Can't Have_


	11. What You Can't Have

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Eleven: What You Can't Have_

Back on the street, Roger and Dorothy looked at Dastun expectantly. "Well?" the negotiator asked.

Dastun took the radio from his ear. "He hung up on me," he smiled.

"Am I going to have a driver's license when all of this is over?" Roger asked.

"Don't sweat it Roger," Dastun made a dismissive gesture. "It's not like we caught you with a known fugitive or anything. I'll just tell them that you agreed to participate in a drill or something. That's it, I'll say this was all a security exercise and I hired you to put the men through their paces. I _am_ in charge of the military police ya know. If Lester Young wants me to bring you in he's got my phone number." Dastun took a box of cigarettes out of his pockets and lit up. "So where's your butler anyway? Smuggling Angel out a secret entrance?"

"Nothing of the kind, colonel," Roger winked. "He's out doing the grocery shopping. If any of your men have my home staked out, they'll sure to see Norman drive home on his motorcycle with a sidecar full of groceries."

"So he's stopping by the store on his way home?" Dastun winked back. "Smooth. Take care of yourself Roger and don't leave town." It was the oldest joke a cop could tell. Aside of Paradigm City there was almost no place to go.

Dastun walked back to the military police vehicles, and they started up and drove away. Roger and Dorothy got back in the Cadillac and returned home to some much needed peace and quiet. Finally they had the house to themselves again. Angel was gone.

Roger frowned. Angel was gone. He might never see her again! He glanced over at Dorothy who was still wearing the pink jacket. Angel was gone and he never…

The pained look on his face wasn't lost on Dorothy, who hadn't said a word after their meeting with Dastun. "Do you miss her Roger?" the girl asked pointblank.

"Huh?" Roger started. "Yes, of course I do. I'm worried about her. With both Beck _and _Lester Young after her I don't know how long she'll last out there. She's in something that's too big for her, and it's not about being a former agent of the Union. Do you think that story she told about a repository of lost…"

"Are you in love with her, Roger?" Dorothy asked in the same tone as before.

"Wow, you sure know how to go for the throat, don't you?" Roger shook his head and walked away. He entered a room that had been furnished to create his own private bar.

"You didn't answer my question," said the unrelenting machine as she followed him and took off her pink jacket.

"It's kind of a personal question, isn't it?" he snorted as he opened a cabinet and pulled out a glass tumbler.

"Yes it is," the girl said as she got behind the bar and bent over to pull out a full seltzer bottle. "But we have been asking each other personal questions for the last few months now. I had assumed that our level of intimacy had increased to a point where we were comfortable asking each other these kinds of questions."

Roger chuckled as he sat down at the bar and let Dorothy mix a drink for him. The girl was so analytical! Sometimes it was hard to remember that she wasn't just a girl; she was also an android. "You're right Dorothy Wayneright," he admitted. "We've reached a point in our friendship where we can ask each other such questions, as long as we aren't so pushy that we _demand_ an answer."

"I believe that the answer to my question is important Roger Smith," Dorothy said in the same flat but stern tone. "You need to reveal the answer, to yourself if not to me." She pushed the finished drink across the bar towards him.

"You're right again, Dorothy," he sighed as he held the glass in his hand. "I've been keeping too many secrets from myself lately. Every man has his secrets, but when he can't be honest with himself he loses his identity." He took a sip then frowned and set his glass back on the bar. "Did you put any gin in this?"

"No. You said you'd cut down," Dorothy said.

"Come on, don't I get a chance to relax?" he smiled disarmingly.

"You were abducted last month," Dorothy reminded him. "You yourself told me that you would never have been captured if you had been sober at the time. You said that using alcohol to solve your problems just makes bigger ones."

"Have a heart Dorothy," Roger whined while maintaining his disarming smile. "I just put fifty miles on the car."

"I will add one shot to your drink but only because I don't want you to suffer withdrawal symptoms," she acquiesced.

"How do you even know about withdrawal symptoms?" Roger asked.

"I read."

"I'm still waiting for that shot of gin," he said while sliding his glass on the bar in a circular motion.

"_I'm_ still waiting for an answer to my question," Dorothy retorted. "Do you love her Roger Smith? Are you in love with Angel?"

"You drive a hard bargain," he sighed.

"I live with a professional negotiator," she replied. "I was bound to pick up something eventually. Do you accept my terms?"

"Deal," he sighed again. "This is a question I'm not ready to answer sober."

Dorothy added a shot of gin and waited as Roger sipped his drink. "You aren't answering," she finally said. "That means that either you don't want to tell me or that you don't know the answer yourself."

"Yeah," he nodded sadly. "I don't know if you understand, but sometimes it's hard to tell if you really love someone or if you just want what you can't have."

"I understand," she replied. "I understand intimately."

* * *

_The next few weeks were quiet. Nobody heard anything out of Beck but that didn't mean that he wasn't planning anything. I wonder… I wonder why he really wants Angel. Is he working for Lester Young? Or is he working for himself? And just what is he going to try next?_

In a large hanger Jason Beck and his cohorts were wearing white lab coats, as were the machinists and technicians that were setting up equipment and connecting power cables.

"Okay boss, everything's set!" Dove, the henchman who looked like a clown piped in his high-pitched squeaky voice.

"We're ready t' throw the switch whenever you're ready!" T-bone, the short tubby henchman who usually dressed like a beatnik said in his deeper voice. Even now he still wore his beanie and sunglasses, despite the fact that he was now dressed in a lab coat and scrubs.

"Boys, moments like this should be savored! When Crow-boy sees this he'll flip his lid!" Back crowed as he walked up a flight of stairs to a catwalk where a control console had been set up. "Okay, let's get this show on the road!" He threw a switch and the lights in the hanger flashed on and off. "It's alive! It's alive!" he shrieked before laughing like a madman. He then coughed and clutched at his neck as his throat became sore.

* * *

Back at the white tower that was the Smith residence, Roger decided to confront a different creation of man's genius. "Okay, Dorothy. What's going on? Ever since Angel left you've become inexplicitly distant. You do your chores without a word, and when you sit at the table I have to pry a conversation out of you. Something is going on. You've been avoiding me and I had to wait until you were cleaning my room so I could corner you."

"I don't know what you mean," she said as she made his bed. Roger blushed as she bent over and the drape of her skirt displayed the shape of her artificial but adorable behind. Either the original Dorothy had a great caboose, or the little android's creator had some kind of fetish.

"For the last few weeks you've been acting like my maid instead of my guest," Roger said as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway. "You haven't even been getting me up with that awful piano music of yours. At first I didn't mind, but now I'm getting worried. You haven't been yourself lately. Is something going on that I should know about?"

She stopped and looked back at him, the servos in her neck audibly humming. "I'm fine, Roger. I really don't know what you mean."

"I mean lately you've been acting like a servant!" Why did Roger raise his voice? Was he really that upset? Why was this so important to him? He coughed into his gloved fist and spoke in a gentler voice. "I know I can be really bossy at times, but believe it or not your opinion matters to me Dorothy."

"Why?" she asked. "I'm only an android. My opinions don't really matter, do they Roger?"

"What kind of nonsense is that?" Roger growled. "Of course they do!"

"I don't see how they would," Dorothy said. "I am completely indebted to you. You allow me to live here and pay all my expenses. I have very little experience with the real world so I have little to no data with which to offer any useful input. I am not technically a living being and as such you have no real obligation to shelter me. The logical conclusion is that I should do what I can to make your life easier and stop interfering with your decisions."

"What are you talking about?" Roger sneered. "That's ridiculous! Where did you get that drivel? 'Little to no data with which to offer any input?' Since when do you talk like that Dorothy?"

"I read."

"Whatever books you're reading, you should stop!" Roger scolded. "Dorothy, you can't deny who you are! This isn't like you! I know sometimes I can be a tyrant but I had hoped that you could at least have your dignity!" Was he panicking? Why was he so upset?

"Don't worry about it," she said. "I don't mind. I can't survive with total freedom and I don't really need dignity. I'll be content to serve and make your life easier. It's better this way."

"Since when do you talk like this Dorothy?" Roger shook his head. "I feel like we've gone back in time to last year. You don't trust me for some reason and you're shutting me out, and I want to know why. Out with it."

Dorothy stood up straight and turned with an unnaturally fluid movement to face the negotiator. "Roger, if you love someone, isn't it normal to want the person you love to be happy?"

"I would think that is a given," Roger shrugged as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, "but what makes you think giving me the cold shoulder will make anyone happy?"

"It is obvious that you and Angel share a certain chemistry," the girl replied as she walked past him, forcing him to follow her through the parlor and down the hall. "She has changed a lot since we first met her. She is no longer the treacherous, unreliable woman she was last year. You could never be happy with a mere android, but maybe you could with the _new_ Angel."

"Where did _this_ come from?" Roger laughed nervously. "Since when did you start playing matchmaker?"

"You see me as some kind of child don't you?" Dorothy asked. "Angel is a grown woman, and perhaps the only human woman who understands you. If I'm not able to grow up in your eyes, perhaps _she_ can give you what you're missing in your life."

By now Roger was blushing. He _had_ been thinking that it would be nice if Angel moved in on a permanent basis, for Dorothy's sake of course. The girl needed strong feminine role model, a big sister one could say. Only his experience as a negotiator stopped him from spouting nonsensical drivel until he could collect his thoughts and figure out what he really wanted to say. Best to say something noncommittal until he knew what was going on. "Why Dorothy, I had no idea that the two of you were getting along so well."

"It's not like I can be choosy," Dorothy said as she opened the door to the broom closet. "I don't really have that many friends," she added as she selected a long handled broom and a dust pan before closing the door.

"Well this is an interesting turn of events," Roger smirked. "From the conversations we've been having since the Union's attack I was under the impression that you thought that _we_ should start dating."

"You think of me as a child, remember?" she said with a slight edge to her voice. "You think of me as a dependent. Despite the fact that I have the maturity level that belongs to that dead girl I was modeled after you still think of me as being two years old. You've made it quite clear."

"If you mean I made it quite clear that a gentleman never takes advantage of an innocent girl living under his roof, then than _yes_, I _did_," he retorted in the same icy tone.

"Going on a few dates isn't taking advantage Roger," she insisted. "We would just be going out. It might not get that far."

"Hey, it's gotten pretty far already!" he protested. "A lot farther than common decency will allow! Do you have any idea how much you've gotten under my skin lately? I take more cold showers these days than…"

At that moment Norman Burg stepped out of the elevator holding a newspaper. There was an awkward silence before the old man spoke. "Oh my, begging your pardon but am I interrupting anything? I'm certain that this can wait."

"No," Roger shook his head in surrender. "It's okay. I need rescuing anyway. What is it?"

"You asked me to keep an eye on the agony columns in case you missed anything," Norman said as he handed Roger the newspaper. "The code words have appeared in the personal ads. It appears that Miss Angel wishes to meet with you sir."

"Angel," Roger breathed a sigh of relief. "She's safe! Thank goodness!" he smiled as he held the newspaper Norman gave him as if it was a Heaven's Day gift.

Roger and Norman jerked in surprise as a loud CRACK echoed through the hallway. They turned their heads to stare at Dorothy Wayneright, who in turn was looking at the broken broomstick in her hands. She had snapped the broom in two.

"It would appear that I am going out also," the girl said quietly. "I need to buy a new broom."

* * *

Elsewhere in the city, Lester Young himself paid a visit the hanger where Beck and the Paradigm mechanics had built the blond criminal's latest creation. "Well Mister Beck I donated the resources and manpower to create your toy. But can you produce the results you promised?"

"Relax Mister Young!" Beck smiled. "It'll be a piece of cake! With this baby in my hands there's nothing to worry about!"

"Somehow Mister Beck I suspect that the opposite is true, but I'm giving you the chance to prove yourself regardless," the portly executive retorted.

"What's the matter? Don't you trust me?" the wily crook smirked.

"That is a question that you already know the answer to Mister Beck," Young sneered. "You insult the both of us merely by asking it."

"Well you can trust me more than Roger Smith," Beck insisted. "That stunt he pulled dressing his android up as Angel was a definite decoy! If you're concerned that I'm wasting your time at least I'm not hindering you like Crow-boy is."

"Is there a point to this innuendo?" Young asked dryly.

"No point, I just wonder how you sleep at night knowing that the guy who controls the black megadeus is actively working against you," Beck shrugged innocently. "I hope for your sake you've got some contingency plans in case he gets even further out of line. If he's planning something, you'll only get one chance before the black megadeus comes down on you."

"Mister Beck, are you trying to convince me to _eliminate_ Roger Smith?" Young asked in a dangerous voice.

"Well he _is_ a potential threat isn't he?" Beck asked. "If he's working for Angel, then we can get rid of the word 'potential'. He _is_ a threat isn't he?"

"Mister Beck, if I eliminated every single person who was a _potential_ threat we would not be having this conversation and you would not be capable of conversing at all," Young enunciated in a stern tone. "Like it or not Roger Smith is the only one who can control the black megadeus and he has always used it to defend Paradigm City and its inhabitants in the past. I would be a fool to dispose of him! I have allowed you to create your toy, and you blatantly try to manipulate me into following your personal agenda. No," he shook his head. "I may be fool enough to build your plaything for you but I am not so much of an ass that I would order my agents to deprive the city of its last line of defense merely at your suggestion! Out of the two of you Roger Smith has proven himself far more dependable that you have sir. I have yet to see you live up to your boasts! Get out of my sight and be thankful that I'm letting you take your creation with you! That's all you're going to get until you get me the Angel! Now go sir! Go! Don't insult me by staying in my presence one more moment!"

"Wow. Touch-_ee_," Beck muttered as the portly executive turned on his heel and strode out of the hangar. "Roger Smith is more reliable that I am huh? We'll see about that!" he snickered. "He's about to find out just what Roger Smith is really made of!"

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: I've Got Your Number_


	12. I've Got Your Number

_The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network._

THE BIG O:

ACT 35

ROGER THE DARK KNIGHT

_Chapter Twelve: I've Got Your Number_

The recent death of Ezekiel 'Zeke the Geek' Crater, the previous mob boss had left a void in the power structure of Paradigm City's underworld, but not for long. It wasn't long before 'Fat' Tony Calzone took over the rackets and most of his rivals found out what the bottom of the city's harbor looked like. 'Fat Tony' was now the big man in organized crime or at least anything too small for the Paradigm Group to concern itself with. Theft, prostitution, gambling, even murder was for sale if the customer was connected enough. When the dust settled, nobody was as connected as 'Fat Tony.'

'Fat Tony' Calzone wasn't a ladies man like the last boss was. His personal vice was food. He ran his empire out of a restaurant just outside the South Street Dome. Pasta and wine was the dish of the day, and for Fat Tony every day was pasta day.

No matter what the news, good or bad, nothing seemed to upset Fat Tony's appetite. That's why it was no surprise when one day, Fat Tony's face puffed up like a blowfish and died right in the middle of his third plate of spaghetti. Everybody knew he'd die of overheating, but nobody expected him to die of suffocation. Had someone slipped something into Fat Tony's food that had done him in? The military police had a lab run toxicology screens on everything from the food to every fluid in the mob boss' body, but they found nothing you couldn't feed a third grader. Fat Tony was dead, nobody knew why, and there was a huge space where Tony had sat that needed to be filled.

This was a problem. After Zeke Crater's death, only Fat Tony had been able to keep the peace. The next day, the remaining underbosses held an emergency meeting at the Sailor's Club, the headquarters of Fat Tony's predecessor, the late and lamented Zeke Crater.

All of the bosses were seated around a round table. Nearly everybody who had a name in crime was there. Albert 'Uncle Al' Cavalieri, who had started at the bottom and had risen to the exalted position of Fat Tony's best friend and advisor; James Michael 'Jimmy Mac' Finnegan, a young up and coming who had married Fat Tony's daughter; Maurice 'Megadeus' Maserati, Calzone's chief rival and at six foot five the most physically intimidating of the bunch; Danny 'Two-Time' DiNozzo, Maurice's lieutenant who said nearly everything twice. They were all there, and so were Jason Beck and his two cronies Bobo 'Dove' Jacobs and Lou 'T-Bone' Torelli.

"Beck, your boys have ta wait outside with the rest of 'em," Finnegan said.

"You heard him boys," Beck shrugged. "Go outside and wait in the Super Beck Deluxe."

"Right boss!" T-Bone smiled as Dove saluted. They seemed to be in a hurry to leave.

"Gentlemen, we are here today to determine the disposition of the late and dearly departed 'Fat Tony' Calzone's assets n' interests," Al Cavalieri said in his gravelly Brooklyn accent. "It is imperative that we find a peaceful way to divide our good friend Tony's business 'cause as we all know, we've all lost too many good friends the last time a boss of his caliber passed away."

"Passed away?" the muscular and oversized Maurice Maserati repeated in disbelief. "Crater was killed! The black megadeus flattened him and his boys like pancakes! Unless you believe that the blob monster ate 'im! 'Passed away?' That's like sayin' the white megadeus made a li'l mess!"

Cavalieri sighed patiently. "As my friend and associate Maurice hez pointed out, things can be rough out there. Let's face it; most of us don't go out quietly like Fat Tony did. I'm sure that most of us want to live to a ripe old age n' die of natural causes…"

"Natural causes!" Beck snickered. "That's a good one!"

"You got somethin' to add?" James 'Jimmy Mac' Finnegan asked the lanky criminal.

"It's just that Fat Tony didn't die of natural causes; that's all!" Beck grinned. "I got an inside source that says he was murdered!"

"Moidoid?" Maserati repeated in disbelief. He died a over eatin'! No poison wuz found in 'is system durin' th' autopsy!"

"That's because Fat Tony didn't die from any poison!" Beck crowed. "What killed him was the powered peanuts added to his spaghetti sauce!"

"So he had some peanut spaghetti, so what?" Finnegan asked.

"So he was allergic to peanuts Jimmy!" Beck grinned. "When he downed that spaghetti like it was goin' out of style he went into what the doctors call anaphylactic shock! He never had a chance!"

"Alloigic!" Maserati repeated. "I didn't know he wuz alloigic!"

DiNozzo shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe that Fat Tony was killed by a peanut, by a peanut!"

"No way!" Finnegan shook his head. "Tony and I were like _dis_!" he pinched his thumb and forefinger together. "If Tony had an allergy, I would've known!"

"But you didn't know Jimmy," Beck smiled and shook his head. "Out of all of you here, only one you _did_ know. Isn't that right _Al_?"

"Hey!" Cavalieri stood up from the table. "What is it you're tryin' t' say?"

"Just that Tony told you everything Al," Beck said coyly. "After all, he was your _best friend_ wasn't he? He trusted you with _everything_."

"You son of a bitch!" Finnegan jumped up from the table and drew a pistol from his jacket. "Tony trusted you like a brother!"

Cavalieri drew a pistol of his own. "Put it away, Jimmy! Put it away!"

"Like Hell I will!" Finnegan barked before two shots rang out, one from his gun and one from Cavalieri's.

Maserati and Dinozzo slowly stood up from the table as Cavalieri and Finnegan fell to the floor.

"Well I guess that settles the question of succession, Maserati," Beck announced as he leaned back in his chair. "With Al and Jimmy gone, it looks like you get the entire pie!"

"Hey that's right!" Dinozzo cheered. "That's right! Congratulations Boss, congratulations!"

"I figure you're looking for a new number two," Beck added.

"Hey, I got Danny here," Maserati said. "Why would I need a new number two?"

"Well, once you find out what he's been doing with your wife I figured you'd cut him up for fish bait," Beck said cheerfully.

"WHUT?" Maserati roared. "Is dis true?"

The guilty look in Dinozzo's eyes was unmistakable. "No boss! I didn't touch her! I swear! I swear!"

"You dirty bastard!" Maserati moved quickly for such a big man. His large meaty hands were around Dinozzo's throat faster than he could blink and a sickening cracking sound was heard.

"Hey, Maurice?" Beck called.

"WHUT?" Maserati barked as he threw his dead lieutenant to the floor.

"Say hello to Danny for me," Beck smiled while pointing a Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver at Maserati's head. He pulled the trigger and emptied the gun before the big man fell down. "_Damn_, it takes _a lot_ to kill him, don't it?" He pulled a radio out of his jacket and extended the antenna. "Okay, boys, bring the Super Beck Deluxe over here like we planned it. Time to blow the roof off this place!"

Beck got up from his seat and walked over to a pool table where he picked up a cue and started knocking balls around. In the meantime a set of double doors opened and a group of toughs wearing jackets, fedoras and three piece suits walked in with their guns drawn.

"What the hell?" one of them the squawked. "What happened to the bosses?"

"They killed each other," Beck said as he knocked a ball into the corner pocket. "I guess that leaves me in charge."

"Oh really?" another man scoffed. "Why should we follow you?"

"Because I know things," Beck said as he hit another ball into a hole. "I've drunk from the well. I've opened the vault of lost memories. Things I never knew just jumped into my head. It was uncanny."

"You expect us to believe that?" another one asked.

"Well, why don't I give a little demonstration?" Beck said as he stood up from the pool table and looked at the crowd of gangsters for the first time. "Why don't I make a prediction? I predict that in less than a minute some of the guys in here are going to die, and the rest are going to join my organization."

"Oh yeah?" a gangster called out. "Who's gonna kill us, huh? You and what army?"

At that moment the roof was torn off to reveal a golden yellow five story tall robot with a strangely shaped head with three sharp points.

"You really walk into these things don't you Angelo?" Beck sighed as a vent in the robot's face where the mouth should be opened to reveal two Browning .50 caliber 'Ma Deuce' machine guns.

* * *

That same morning Roger's long black Cadillac was parked on the beach. Roger Smith was leaning on the hood while gazing at Angel, who was wearing a pink jacket over a black cocktail dress. "Angel…"

"It's all there, the entire file and dossier of Jeremiah Lynch," Angel said referring to the bulging manila envelope resting the front passenger seat of Roger's Cadillac. "Everything you need to take him down. All the dirty little secrets you need to get Dastun to move on him before he takes Paradigm City into another dark age."

"Angel, what about Beck?" Roger asked the heavenly blonde. "Last time we met he was after you and you made it sound like he could do more damage than Lynch ever could."

"I don't know," she admitted. "He seems to know where all the cameras and microphones are hidden. I know that the Paradigm Company built something for him in a large hanger. A megadeus I guess. That's about it. Sorry."

"Okay, changing the subject then," Roger asked. "What about _us_?"

"Roger, there is no 'us'," she sighed. "There never was."

"I was thinking that maybe that should change," Roger smiled bashfully and walked over to her. "There _is _something between us and I think it would be good for Dorothy if there was another woman around the house. Someone she could look up to if you know what I mean…"

Angel interrupted him by laughing bitterly. "Roger that boat sailed a long time back. Probably before we ever met."

"Angel you can't keep running away," he said as he held her hand. His wristwatch chose that moment to beep. "Darn it," he muttered as he released her hand in order to hit a stud on his watch. "Yes Norman? What is it?"

"So sorry to intrude master Roger but there appears to be a megadeus operating in the dock district," said the tiny monochrome image of Norman Burg on the face of his watch. "I'm sending Big O to that location as we speak."

"Figures," Roger grunted. "Thanks Norman," he said before hit the stud on his watch again. "Angel, it looks like duty calls, but this conversation isn't over."

"Go," she said sadly. "I'll be right here."

Roger squeezed her hand and then he ran over to his car and drove off.

Angel sighed and strolled over to a wooden walkway that left the beach and went up to street level. When she reached the street, she saw someone she didn't expect. "Dorothy?" the enchanting blonde asked. "What are you doing here? How long have you been watching us?"

"Come with me if you want to live," the little android said.

* * *

At that moment Roger Smith was speeding down the street. "Okay Big O," he said as he spoke into his watch. "It's Showtime."

Transported underneath the ground by the four locomotive vehicle nicknamed, the 'prairie dog', the black megadeus could reach anywhere the ancient subway system could before the event that erased everyone's memories and left Paradigm City alone in the world of amnesia.

Like the dead rising out of their graves on judgment day, the Big O tore out of the ground sending concrete and asphalt flying in all directions. The massive robot thundered forward away from the crater its appearance had created and stood two blocks away from the yellow megadeus.

The long black car drove right between Big O's feet before it braked and then backed up to enter a garage that was at the bottom of the black megadeus' right foot. Soon Roger was in the control room.

Roger sat in the cockpit and put his feet into the pedals. He crossed his arms as two curved arms ending in joysticks closed to encircle his chair. At Roger's feet were three circular monitors. The larger center screen displayed a message: "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD YE NOT GUILTY".

He stared at the fifty foot tall golden robot before him. "Beck," he muttered in disgust. "Huh?" he blinked at the right monitor flashed with the words "INCOMING MESSAGE" in large bold letters.

"Hey Roger," a wine colored monochromatic image of Jason Beck smiled from circular screen. "Catch you at a bad time?"

"Beck," Roger growled. "What have you got to say? I hope you're wearing a seatbelt because I'm about to tear that megadeus you're in apart."

"Hey, there's no need for violence!" Beck assured Roger through the little screen. "I just need some help with something. A little puzzle I'm working on. Tell me, what do these numbers mean to you? Nine seven zero one three three zero five seven zero four one five?"

"What?" Roger frowned. "I don't…"

"Here I'll put 'em on your screen for you," Beck offered. On the small circular screen to the left of the center one a series of numbers appeared: 9 701330 570415.

* * *

"Roger!" R Dorothy Wayneright gasped.

* * *

9 701330 570415. It was the number that was under the barcode in the eye in Roger's dreams! He couldn't even see the screens anymore, all he could see was the bar code! The eye. Bald children staring into the flames. Books burning on the shelves…

"Recognize that number Roger?" Beck's mocking voice asked. "Do you remember the Ellen Waite case where little Dorothy's identical twin was killing off people in their twenties who claimed they had Memories from forty years ago? You found a hit list? Do you remember? Next to every name was a barcode that had a number under it. Do you remember the last name? The next person to be targeted by the killer? Do you? Huh?"

"R-D," Roger muttered the image of the hit list flashed before his eyes.

"That's right," Beck cooed condescendingly. "And who did she go after next?"

"Me!" Roger gasped as the memory of that day came back to him.

"R-D," Beck's voice taunted. "It couldn't have been the name of Dorothy's twin sister now was it? It makes no sense to put herself on her _own_ hit list does it?"

"No!" Roger shuddered as images from his nightmares assaulted him.

* * *

In the meantime Angel and the little android were walking briskly through an alley to avoid pursuit. "What's going on Dorothy?" the blonde asked the robot girl. "What did you mean when you said that just now?"

"Roger is in trouble," the android said. "Beck has set a trap for him, just as he has set a trap for _you_."

"A trap for _me_?" Angel repeated. "How does he even know where I am? Are you sure?"

"Yes," the dainty android said as she discharged a small handheld electroshock weapon against Angel's neck. "Quite sure."

* * *

"'R-D' doesn't refer to the _assassin_ Roger!" Beck chortled from cockpit of the golden megadeus. "The killer's name wasn't R-D! It never was! R-D refers to the _victim_! Haven't you figured it out by now? I've got your _number_!"

_To Be Continued_

Dorothy and Roger sit on a large hourglass the size of a barstool. Behind them is an orange background. The sound of a piano and the duet of a man and woman singing can be heard.

_Sometimes I feel so all alone_

_Finding myself callin' your name_

_When we're apart, so far away_

_Hopin' it's me that you're thinkin' of_

_Could it be true, could it be real?_

_My heart says that you're the one._

_There's no one else, you're the only one for me._

_Yes, this time my love's the real thing._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

_Could it be true, could it be real?_

_My heart says that you're the one._

_There's no one else, you're the only one for me._

_Yes, this time my love's the real thing._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

_Never felt that love is so right._

_The world seemed such an empty place._

_We need someone we could give our all._

_Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever._

* * *

On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

_Next: What We Really Wanted_


End file.
